Twisted
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: A mile long moving disaster incites life or death decisions for both Rampart and Station 51.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Fourteen

14 Twisted. Season Two - Episode 14 Short summary-  
A mile long moving disaster incites life or death decisions for both Rampart and Station 51.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

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Long Summary-  
Roy and Johnny visits Craig Brice in the hospital and learn of an Amtrak train derailment. Belatedly, they're called out to triage a section of the train. They treat multiple victims and find out that Dixie and Brackett caught a helicopter ride to the scene and are doing triage nearby. Dixie discovers Brice's paramedic partner, Bob Bellingham, on the train with his newborn daughter. Dixie begins CPR on the night chilled infant. Roy and Johnny rescue a trapped boy and Marco finds a walking wounded.  
Gage is attracted by Brackett's whistle and responds to Dixie's baby rescue.  
Meanwhile, Dr. Morton suffers a meningitis exposure scare. Together, Kel and Gage treat the infant and evac her out by chopper. Roy discovers two people impaled on the same rod, a lawyer and the boy's mother, but only one of them can be attempted to save and he bulks deciding which one. Brackett relieves him of their care. The lawyer and mother flip a coin to decide who lives and who dies. Afterwards, Roy and Johnny strike a motorcycler with the squad on the way to a food tent and are taken hostage by the angry hispanic neighborhood bent on retaliation. Gage is found and treated by Cap. Vince Howard, the police officer negotiates for Roy's release after the head of the gang's mother suffers a heart attack. Marco translates for all while he and others care for her in Johnny's stead. Gage receives a hospital visit from Chet, Brice and Roy a few days later in an ironic reversal.

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The Story Unfolds...

Season Two, Episode Fourteen..

Twisted Debut Launch: 1 September 2004.

****************************************************** From: "Roxy Dee" Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 07:24:13 +0000 Subject: [EmergencyTheaterLive] Dr. Orange to Emergency STAT~~

Dixie McCall sighed expansively as she took an elicit sip from her cup of ice cold coffee. ::This tastes absolutely heavenly.:: she thought, as she dragged yet another chart from the stack carousel out for viewing.  
Not even aware of it, she began mumbling. "Let's see.  
an ankle in Room Three. X-rays ...Ordered. In Two,  
an arm laceration that Joe's suturing as of..." she peered at her delicate silver banded watch. "..five minutes ago... Kel's in Radiology viewing the latest chest films on Station Eight's downed fireman. Who was that again?.." She flipped a few pages, checking on that.

"Paramedic Craig Brice. Smoke inhalation from his playing the hero game. And no, he won't be needing a bronchoscopy session with Dr. Irons." answered Carol Evans as she returned from answering a patient light down the hall from the emergency ward's main desk.

McCall startled, then caught herself when her coffee spilled over her hand and onto the formica desktop.

"Oh my word! Dixie! Did you just burn yourself?" Carol gasped.

Dixie smiled. "I know better than to hang onto a cup for too long around here if it's still piping hot. This, is nowhere near that."

Carol made a face. "Ugh.. How can you drink it then?"

McCall looked up at her senior nurse over the bridge of her nose. "When you inherit my head nurse's position someday,  
you'll find out the answer to that one." She didn't skip a beat,  
"What was the light for? I saw it but I knew you were closer."

"Bedpan, Room Four. The Iverson boy needed some help using it. He's the left tib fib fracture that's still waiting to be set."

Dixie's smile fell into one of self admonishment and she snapped a couple of fingers in sudden memory. "I knew I was forgetting something." And she reached for the phone.

Carol stopped her. "I've already called Orthopedics. Dr. Allan will be down to cast him up in ten minutes."

Dixie sighed, patting Carol's hand in gratitude. "Thanks. You're a dear. I'm just horrible with organizing anything on slow days like this." she said, mopping up her hand and the desk counter with a wad of tissue.

"Now that's something I understand completely, Dix. How about we mosy into Five and see how Dr. Morton's doing with that fever case? We still need to do a full chart on her."

"Sounds like a plan. Then, afterwards, it's two cups of HOT coffee for the both of us in the nurse's lounge." Dixie promised. " I gotta jump start the inside of my head sooner rather than later. My right big toe's itching and that means we're gonna get busy.."

Nurse Evans laughed. "Really?"

"Oh yeah. I've learned to read the tiny little signs I get physically when all my intuitions and instincts slam shut upstairs on the slow business days." Dixie said, closing her chart and returning it to the carousel.

"Gee. I don't think I ever know what my feet are doing, unless they're barking at me for covering a double shift." Carol conmiserated.

"Doubles? Heh. Try working a 36 hour shift. Then, you'll learn the true meaning of foot agony." she quipped. "I usually have to crawl home."

The two nurses had almost passed by the bulky corner of the all glass paramedic base station when the seldom used red phone on the wall rang by the paramedic line's reel to reel transmission recorder began to buzz urgently. Dixie waved off the student nurse supplying the drug cabinet to pick up the call herself. "Rampart Emergency. This is Nurse McCall."

Carol watched when Dixie's face lost all expression and took her cue from that. She got on the white phone to the operator.  
"Yes, this is Carol Evans from Emergency. Could you page Kel Brackett to report down here stat? We've a major in the works.  
Thanks." and she hung up the phone about the same time Dixie did.

"It's a train wreck. One of those new fangled Amtraks or whatever they're called. The DOT says that each hospital in the district could expect to see up to a dozen patients incoming." McCall reported.

Carol nodded. "I've put out the page about it."

"Really? How'd you do that so fast? I just told you what we're gonna get."

Nurse Evans scoffed. "You may be the guru when it comes to stomaching evil concoctions from the brewing pot and feeling the ER weather with your digits. But no one is better than me at reading coworkers. Your poker face firing up gave it all away."

"Hmm, I'll have to work on that." Dixie said without grinning.  
"Who did you get?"

"Brackett. He was only going over films, remember?"

"Good choice. His grumbling over the disaster alert will be the best medicine I can take to get over my brain fog."

"That's why I picked him. Two birds with one stone." Carol agreed.

"Perfectionist." Dixie teased with feigned indignant sarcasm.

"I learned from the best." Carol smiled sweetly.

The two nurses flew in two different directions to bustle the staff into shape for a full blown Condition Orange.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Mike Morton was helping a restless, sweaty young African American woman back down onto the gurney from where she had sat up in a moan from malaise caused by her very high temperature.

"Easy maam. Why don't you just ....lie back down again. Just like that. That's it. I don't want you to hurt yourself." Mike soothed. "Now, does your head hurt at all? How's your neck?  
Does it feel like it's tight or cramping up on you?"

The stricken woman on the bed made eye contact but didn't make an indication that she had understood him.

Morton frowned, looking up at the orderly attendant with him.  
"Hmm. She's borderline on delirium now. It's ok. I got her, Malcolm.  
Why don't you call us a nurse to set up an immediate ice bath?  
First thing, that fever spiking's gonna be stopped. We'll do it after the spinal tap."

The burly blond orderly nodded and moved to the treatment room phone.

Morton pulled the thermometer out of the woman's mouth where he had been holding it alongside a jaw spreader. He held it up to the light, peering at the tic marks over the mercury.  
"It's 104. Tell them to hurry it up some."

Dr. Morton moved the still wrapped spinal tray closer to get it set for the staff that was coming to help him with it.  
To kill some time, he began to speak to his patient. "Now don't you worry. I've got people on the phone lines trying to find out who you are right this minute. The sooner we know that, the sooner we'll get our answers."  
he sighed, still clutching her restless hand across her chest to partly monitor her breathing and partly to keep her flat.

The woman's eyes never failed to leave his over the oxygen mask she wore and she moaned again in unconscious misery.

"Shh.. It's ok, honey. I'm a doctor and I promise you that I'm gonna find out what's wrong with you just as fast it's humanly possible."

Dixie's head poked in the door. "Mike?"

Morton didn't look up. "Coming to help us out?"

"Don't I wish. Trouble's brewing, doctor. Big trouble.  
The fire department dispatch's just notified us of a train wreck east of here."

"Do they have any casualty numbers?"

Dixie minutely shook her head. "It's too soon to tell."  
Then her practiced eye noticed a trembling in Morton's patient's legs. "Want some diazepam for that seizure?"

"It's mild yet. Her BP's yo yo-ing and I don't want it to take a dive."

"How about some quarantine control?"

"Yeah, get that going. This might be meningitis in full swing."

"Oh, boy. You know you two have been seriously exposed."

Morton huffed. "Yeah, we know. And so was half the waiting room when she stumbled in here from the outer doors. We'll decontaminate in the next room and slip into a couple of masks to help out there just as soon as we're through managing her in here."

"I'll tell the bath and spinal tap people to gown up before entering." McCall said, letting the door shut between them as she turned on the negative air flow button in the treatment room next to the cabinet.  
Morton shouted after her. "How about a sign for.."

"The infection warning's already hanging on your door."  
came Dixie's rushing voice. "I had a gut feeling."

Rampart General Hospital began shoring up for a large disaster response. Administrators immediately started calling all their available off duty hospital staff to report in for emergency triage work. Multiple med evac helicopters were summoned to the parking lot's landing pad.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe Early burst out of Treatment Two, peeling off his bloody suturing gloves and he tossed them into the hallway biohazard receptacle. "Dixie?" he inquired.

"The base station's quiet yet. Apparently, all this has just happened. I have FEMA's radio frequency called up on the scanner and all the senior staff's been properly notified.  
We'll have everyone but Dr. Morton."

"What's tying him up?"

"Spinal Meningitis in Treatment Room Five. He didn't spot it fast enough to get covered up. Malcolm's been exposed, too."

Dr. Early rubbed his hand and the rings there thoughtfully. "That shouldn't be a problem. They're both young and strong. The chances of them catching it at their ages and conditions are low."

"Still. They're gonna work in masks and gloves when they get out here. For OUR protection." she teased. "We're the oldsters in this outfit."

"I can order some interferon boosters for everyone you think's been exposed."

"Don't bother, there's too little time left. The bell's just about ready to go off on the train pileup." she said, throwing a hand over her shoulder towards the buzz light over the glass paned paramedic radio room. "Let's just hope Jane Doe's germ is a weak one. Cross your fingers and coffee up, you're gonna need it." she said gulping down hers.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I concur. There's absolutely no sign of solid aspiration. No ash.  
No glass dust. Amazing."

Kelly Brackett smiled. "That's Craig Brice for you. He's a h*ll of a fireman. Almost as good as he is a paramedic. I suspect he got some SCBA gear from that roof line as soon as his victim's stokes was pulled free from it. It's just like him to haul his bacon out of a fire at the last possible moment, unscathed except for a few minor things. Another paramedic of mine's green with envy over his almost one hundred percent non injury track record."

"A charmed life." Dr. Michaelson of Radiology interjected, peering at the films of Brice's lungs closely.

"So far. And I'd like to think it's gonna stay that way."  
Kel admitted, crossing his elbows.

"It will. I see nothing here that indicates a future risk for secondary pneumonia."

"Great news. I'll tell him after he's transferred upstairs."

Michaelson nodded.

Dr. Brackett suddenly heard his name called by the house operator.  
##Doctor Brackett. Report to Emergency Stat. Doctor Brackett,  
Report to Emergency Stat. You've a conference with Dr. Orange.##

Kel and Dr. Michaelson both stood from their stools and ignored the row of Xray films hanging under the purple white light in front of them in alarm.

"Now just what kind of disaster is it this time?" Brackett asked sharply as his worry suddenly exploded. He headed for the exit across the darkened viewing room.

"I'm coming with you." said Michaelson, grabbing his white lab coat.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dixie heard a commotion coming from the outer doors and she and Carol and Dr. Early hurried to meet whoever it was as fast as they could get there.

The emergency ambulance entrance doors parted to reveal....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Joe, Dixie and Kel frantically at work at the base station.

Photo: Morton tending a young African American woman.

Photo: Dixie reading a chart near another nurse.

Photo: A Mayfair Cadillac ambulance backing up to the ER doors at Rampart.

Photo: A helicopter view of a massive train wreck with EMS and Fire crews on scene.

*  
From: "Cory Anda" Date: Thu Sep 9, 2004 10:08 am Subject: The Best Laid Plans of Mice and ....

.......a fire department squad backing up in the space reserved only for resupplies pickup.

Dixie snapped a cord mentally. "Oh, for crying out loud,  
don't they know what's happening?!" she groused, turning on a heel and disappearing back into the hallway.

Carol didn't exactly throw up her hands but she frowned, too,  
at the bit of normalcy arriving in the shape of Johnny and Roy.  
"No victim?" she asked Dr. Early half heartedly.

"No victim.." Joe replied, smiling.

"I guess I'd better go cool Dixie down. Already, she's wound up tighter than a top." Nurse Evans admitted.

"You do that. I'll take care of the boys here to bring them up to date." Joe leaned into the squad. "Hiya boys."

"Hiya doc." Roy said.

"Wow, that was some welcoming committee. First Dix, then Carol, now you, heh. Won't be long, we just came for a couple of Ringers that we both forgot to grab that wasn't on our last run's paperw-" Johnny started to explain.

"You mean you haven't heard anything yet?" Joe interrupted.

"Haven't heard what?" Roy asked, his face going slack.

"There's a condition orange in effect as of right now.  
An amtrak derailed a few minutes ago." Dr. Early told them.

"No kidding. You're serious.." Gage shook his head.

"Very serious. Dixie has all the staff scrambling. I'm surprised your station hasn't been called out yet to respond to the accident."  
Joe said scratching his nose.

Gage immediately got out onto the running board and checked the antennae on top of the squad's roof. The aerial, was missing.

"D*mn it. I knew we were in kinda tight on that last fire hazard call.  
There was enough mesquite on Old Man Foster's property to choke a horse." Johnny exclaimed. "We must've knocked it off when we left."

Roy immediately turned on his walkie talkie to hear a hail of out going tones for L.A. and Los Angeles County's outlying stations. All three of them listened carefully but the tones for 51 didn't sound off.  
"Maybe we can learn more by listening to your emergency scanner, doc."  
DeSoto said.

"Be my guest. Not much going on yet. It's too soon."  
Joe nodded and opened the squad door so Roy could get out.

Quickly, the three of them went inside and soon were gathered around Dixie's main desk. Dr. Brackett was there watching Dixie pull out the disaster management book from its storage envelope for him to read. "Evening, boys." he greeted.

Johnny and Roy both waved half heartedly. Gage got down to business. "Doc, what have you heard? Our squad radio was knocked out. But apparently, we haven't been missed yet. Our station's still at the station." he laughed at his pun.

"Not much." Kel frowned. "You know as much as I do."

"Anything we can do around here to help out?" Roy said as nurses, doctors, orderlies and patients all in motion, milled about because of the soon to come emergency traffic.

"Yeah, help me load up the helicopter with supplies?  
You can grab yours while you're doing it." He said noting the empty box that Roy held under his arm. "I'm dragging Dixie along with me to the scene. There's absolutely no doubt that we're gonna be needed, and in a hurry." Brackett said. "I'm just doing a little anticipating gentlemen." he said hefting up the disaster protocol manual. "I suggest you do the same thing."

"Where's the wreck located at?" Gage said as they moved to the entrance and the outer pharmacy.

"West side of town, but east of here, still in the suburbs." Kel pointed as they bundled up boxes of medical gear onto a gurney. Once it was full, the two paramedics and single doctor, hurried outside, pushing the fully laden stretcher before them.

Johnny craned his neck into that direction, shading his eyes from the brilliant late evening sun. "I don't see any smoke."

Roy shook his head. "You don't have to see any to have a really bad situation, Johnny. An Amtrak has no cargo to burn."

"Oh yes it has. You're forgetting all the people." Johnny said grimly, fiddling with the strap on his walkie talkie where it dangled on his wrist. He was the very picture of frustration as station after station, all but 51's, was called to respond.

They got near to the landing pad so they ducked as low as the gurney's mattress to protect their heads from the whirling blades and so did a rushing Dixie, now wearing a heavy field sweater emblazed with her medical staff emblem.

Kel Brackett helped Dixie inside the roaring chopper.  
"You boys better get back. We're good to go. Thanks for the loading help. No doubt we'll be meeting up again." he shouted over the wind and rotors of the rescue helicopter.

"You can count on that for sure, doc." Gage promised with fervor.

Roy and Johnny back stepped until they were well away from the launching pad, each holding a walkie talkie to their ear as fire units continued to be deployed to the site of the crashed train.

A full minute after Brackett's helicopter disappeared,  
there was still no word for their engine or squad.

"I don't get it.." Johnny complained. "Did L.A. forget about us? Maybe we should just head on out there and be done with it."

"I think we should stick tight. Who knows? We may be just assigned to cover someone else's service grid. Not all of us can go." Roy said reasonably.

"Maybe that's true, but I don't have to like it." Johnny said as they went back into the busy emergency room that was in full preparation for a massive influx of patients.

Joe Early was reading his own copy of the mass casualty incident manual by the paramedic station when Gage and Roy got to the main reception desk. The silver haired doctor looked up. "Still no word?"

"No." said Gage crankily. "Roy seems to think we're being held back in reserve."

"Good thing you were. Your antennae was out. It could have been very bad if you were called out and hadn't answered."  
Joe reasoned.

Johnny refused to be placated and just harrumphed in his throat, pushing aside the full coffee mug that Roy offered to him from the pot. "I'm not thirsty. I'm mad. Thanks, anyway.  
But, no thanks."

Joe chuckled. "So, paramedics feel just as much like the preverbial football with superiors as we doctors do."

Gage wasn't angry enough not to smile at Joe's glib comment. "Doc, you mean to tell me that you have a boss to worry about?"

"Yep. The big man upstairs. And I'm talking about the one smoking the expensive cigars wearing suits by Georgio, not the one surrounded by harps and angels." he joked.

"Huh, I didn't know that. I thought that once you become a doctor, you become your own boss with nobody to pay attention to but yourself and your patients." Gage gaped.

"Maybe someday. But as long as my salary is paid by what the hospital charges for my services and skills, I'm always going to be at somebody's beck and call."

"You know, that- that's not right. It's not right at all. There's something fundamentally wrong with that idea." Johnny scoffed. "I mean, you save lives and all.. I mean, yeah, Roy and I do, too, but not in the same way. I think you should form a physician's union doc, and force a few changes or two to gain a little independence."

Joe quickly picked up the white phone. "Want to suggest that to the big man upstairs? I can put ya through..." he said dialing up.

Gage sputtered and grabbed the phone from Joe's hand.  
"Funny man. A real comedian."

"I try to be. It keeps me from going absolutely nuts around here sometimes. Oh, by the way. Did your captain remember to cook some extra clam chowder for me and the missus?"

"Huh?" Gage said, still digesting the doc's logic. "Whaa? Oh.  
yeah. Stuck it in the freezer for ya. You can pick it up in the morning."

"That's if we're allowed to be 10-8 in the morning." Roy reminded Johnny.

Gage looked at his partner without comprehension.

Roy elaborated. "Someone has to let Dr. Early IN to get to the refrigerator."

"Oh, yeah, right." Johnny sniffed, pulling un-necessarily on his utility belt. "We'll try to have someone there for ya, doc. But seeing that everyone's at the train wreck..." his face retwisted into a seethe at the thought of being excluded from such a major run. "...we may not be able to accommodate you."

"I can wait. Chowder keeps a week, Hank tells me, if it's flash frozen."

"His was." Roy nodded.

Carol Evans, who had been busy answering phones and directing staff to their assigned areas, piped up. "You know, Craig Brice is still here in Room 512. Maybe you boys can kill some time waiting for word from your dispatcher by visiting for a few minutes with him. You know how annoying getting over a chest full of smoke can be. It's compounded ten times over when one is confined to absolute bed rest."

Joe's eyebrows rose. "Now that," he said stabbing a finger at Carol. "...is a fine example of the manipulating I regularly suffer.  
And she's not even my boss. I know a thinly veiled dismissal when I hear one, boys. Feel offended."

Evans face quirked. "That's right. Now you paramedics know who's the real head of the emergency department." she said without batting an eye. "How can I get any work done around here with that idle chatter of yours distracting me. Oh lord,  
I'm starting to sound like Dixie already and I just took over for her."

Roy and Johnny laughed.

"512 did you say?" Gage asked.

"512." Evans answered, dipping her neatly coiffed brunette head elegantly.

Joe Early slipped into melodramatics. "Oh adieu, my fair maiden,  
parting is such sweet sorrow, I should cut my body to pieces to call you once by your name.."

"Just Nurse will do, Doctor." and she made shooing motions. "I'm sure your missus wouldn't want you to call me anything other than that." she said dryly.

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth!" Early postured.

Carol hissed at him making cat's claws.

Joe fled, feigning fright, into a treatment room whose patient needed his attentions.

Carol's claws turned into a friendly double wave as she watched Gage and DeSoto disappear into the elevator.

-  
Johnny Gage inched up onto his toes, peering out the fifth floor window blinds, at the end of the hall next to Brice's assigned patient room.

Roy smacked him. "Would you cut that out? We'll get there when we get there."

Gage rubbed his sore arm vigorously. "Ow. I was only trying to get feelers out on what we're heading into."

"Who says we're heading into anywhere?" Roy argued.  
"The HT's still quiet on that issue!"

"Yeah? Well YOU'RE not so quiet about it, that's for sure.  
And not so quiet vocally either." said Johnny, popping a chocolate he found abandoned in a half eaten box on the hallway crash cart. "This is a hospital. Show some respect would ya? There's a lot of sick people around here."and his angry scowl turned into one of amusement when he realized he got Roy's goat yet again.

It was Roy's turn to seethe, feeling royally had. Then he started laughing. He barely got things under control when Johnny snatched up the box of sweets on his way in to Brice's room and shoved them behind his back as they entered.

"Hi Craig. How're ya feeling?" Gage asked. "It's not every day ya get to receive a little mouth to mouth from your own station captain now is it?"

Roy stepped on Johnny's foot, who promptly ignored him.

Craig Brice, decked out in a white gown replete with blue florets,  
set down his magazine. "Gage. DeSoto. What a pleasant surprise.  
Why aren't you at the railway accident scene yet?"

Johnny's grin fell away into one of disgust. "Now, see?" He pegged a glare at Roy. "Why do I get the feeling that everybody who's anybody knows about that wreck and how incongruent WE are for not being there?"

Roy pretended that Johnny wasn't even there to help curb his high flowing embarrassment. "Hiya Craig. Carol Evans thought bringing him up here to see you would cheer him up. Have some chocolates." and he yanked the open box away from Johnny's concealing hand and offered Brice the lot by sliding it across his bedside eating table.

Brice blinked around his nasal cannula. "I should think that by now,  
you'd know that John Gage never cheers himself up unless he's ready to do so on his own, DeSoto. Thanks for the confections."  
and he helped himself to the smallest piece, chewing carefully.

Johnny didn't know whether to be insulted or to agree with his old nemesis. He opted on stuffing another candy into his other cheek. "Well, how are ya anyway? Any pulmonary edema?"

"No."

"Any laryngospasms cropping up?"

"No."

"Any arrythmias fluttering in your chest?"

"No. Do you see me wired to an EKG monitor?"

Gage flared. "You mean you don't even have so much as a sore throat for your troubles?"

"I don't. Thanks for inquiring."

Gage sputtered indignantly, remembering his own miserable symptoms whenever he was laid low by smoke exposure.

Roy covered for him. "I guess he means that he's really glad you're feeling better." DeSoto said mildly.

"I fathomed that angle a minute ago, DeSoto. Thanks. I am almost back to optimal conditioning. I'll go home this evening Kelly Brackett says. And I've been cleared to return back to work tomorrow morning."

Gage turned apoplexic and he couldn't speak.

Brice rose from his bed and only stopped because he still had an I.V. line in. "Are you choking?"

Roy shook his head and then did a double take at his color changing partner. "Are you?!"

Gage nodded, finally grabbing his throat with the universal crossed hands sign subconsciously.

Both Roy and Brice smacked a fist into Johnny's back,  
bending him over the snack table and two mostly chewed squares of caramel and chocolate flew out of Johnny's mouth.

Johnny straightened, sucking in huge breaths as he regained a hard won equilibrium.

Brice calmly got back into bed, pulled the covers back over his knees and peeled off his cannula. "Want this?"

Johnny batted it away with a glare and finally coughed.  
"Funny man. Never let it be said that Craig Brice doesn't have a sense of humor. You and Dr. Early should get together sometime on that." he rasped, leaning a head into his hands against the tabletop.

"You ok?" Roy smirked, still hanging onto Johnny's belt.

"I'm fine. I was just a little hungry I guess." he said lifting his head.

"No, you were more like a little jealous I'd say." Roy said.

"Of what?" Johnny said, cleaning up his spit out candy from the sheets and magazine cover on Brice's lap with a kleenix from the table top tissue box.

"Of my faster than normal recovery period, Mr. Gage. It's not often I'm in the hospital like this. The only other time was when I had the roof fall on top of me after I pushed your partner out of the way from under a fire weakened section at the Gilmore Factory Fire on June 8th, 1975.  
It's nothing to be ashamed of. I, in turn, admire you, too."

John blinked in surprise. "Uh, you do?"  
Roy said the same thing in stereo. "Uh, you do?"

"Of course. John Gage's a prime example of what an ex-juvenile delinquent can become when given the proper chance. The paramedic program's been an absolute boon for you.  
You're almost a model citizen when it comes to true character."

-  
"I oughta go back there and KILL him once and for all."  
Gage spat.

"Why?" said Roy in amusement. "And undo all that nice work the docs did for him? That'd be a waste of energy."

"Not in my book." Gage grumbled.

"You should be happy. We've been called to respond to the train wreck."

"Finally.."

"Well, why aren't you happy now?" Roy asked.

" Because NO paramedic should get to an accident scene a whole half hour AFTER the nurse and doctor does. It's bad for business."  
he said, staring out the window of the speeding squad.

Roy just rolled his eyes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Dixie Roy Johnny and Brackett in hallway.

Photo: Roy in a waiting room closeup.

Photo: Johnny looking cheeky at Rampart.

Photo: Brice in a hospital bed wearing a cannula.

Photo: Johnny Gage in a helmet, seething, in the squad.

Photo: Roy grinning in the lounge.

From : patti keiper Sent : Thursday, September 9, 2004 6:49 PM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Red, Green, Yellow or Black...

Roy pulled up the squad two blocks away from the intersection to which they had been assigned.  
It was four blocks away from the first aid station set up near a high school foot ball field that was large enough to accomodate the medical helicopters.

Engine 51 was already parked at an angle near a hydrant but her hoses were still in her hose bed.

Roy and Johnny got out, grabbed their gear and reported in. Johnny spoke into his hand radio.  
"Squad 51 on scene at Vajalla and McGinty."

Immediately, Hank Stanley intercepted them on the frequency. ##Engine 51, Squad 51, we've been ordered to search all the train cars between Vajalla and Hwy 9. Use triage protocols and set up your gear in a safe area. We're working at car forty five.  
Cars one through forty four have been cleared and evacuated. Do you copy?##

Gage frowned. "10-4. Loud and clear." he replied, pressing the talk button. They started walking fast with absolutely everything that they could possibly carry from the squad towards the train tracks.

Roy looked at Johnny, ignoring the dangling air bottle mask swinging around his knees. "Car forty five? Just how big is this passenger line? I'm not seeing many fire crews past ours here." he said throwing a head towards the Ward La France where she was sitting idle.

They rounded the next corner of the block and stopped dead in their tracks. "Oh my word, would you just look at that?" Gage exclaimed. Ahead of them, they could see accordianed silver and blue trains cars indicative of Amtrak knotted eerily like some bizarre kinked snake above the railroad tracks. Hundreds of people who had been on the train were milling about, trying to leave towards the first aid station or for the line of police cars that they could see trying to coordinate rescue activities, paralleling the railroad tracks.

"Could have been worse." Roy commented. "Looks like most of the cars are still basically near the tracks and fully intact. Tipped over, but not on fire."

Johnny began to hit the fringes of walking wounded that police officers were escorting towards the high school to their right. He shouted to a motorcop in the middle of a huddle. "Hey!" he said, getting the officer's attention,  
by pointing to the green number on his helmet to identify himself as a paramedic. "You got any victims that need immediate attention?!" he gasped shifting the heavy weight of gear in his hands.

The cop shook his head. "Nah, these folks are minors and can walk. Here." he said, clipping a bundle of white tags that had green, yellow and red strips on them onto Gage's air bottle straps. "A nurse working up ahead asked me to give these to you." and then he was gone into the crowd.

"That must have been Dixie." Roy exclaimed, searching with his eyes over all the heads of dazed people and shouting cops for any sign of her and Brackett. He couldn't locate them.

Johnny looked down at the wires and tags swinging from his belt. "Triage tags. The train must've cracked open somewhere along its length."

"It would have only done that if it hit an obstacle before it derailed."

Johnny spun about, searching for more signs of trouble past the row of pitch angled passenger cars jutting out in every direction from the railroad tracks along the row of neatly tiled houses in the neighborhood.  
"How about that highway to our right? Could the locomotive engine have hit a car?" Johnny theorized as he stuck his head above the crowd of frightened, but mostly uninjured people moving away from the twisted train to try and spot a reason.

"Possibly. I think that intersection's a ground level crossing.  
Come on, I think I see Cap's helmet." Roy puffed as he moved the O2 cylinder from his side to his shoulder for easier carrying.

Then they were there.

Gage heard a shout from Lopez to his left. "Over here! We've got a woman down, bleeding very badly out of her legs, looks like something heavy crushed them." the Latin American fireman said. "Follow me. She's over by the Mayfair, on the ground."

Roy and Johnny hurried over and crouched over a twenty something year old. A young man with their victim was upset but coherent and he held her hand. "She your girlfriend?" Roy asked him, reading the red margined triage tag fluttering in the wind on her shoulder.

"Yeah. Her name's Cindy. Ohmyg*d. Is she gonna be all right?"

Johnny made himself smile once he recognized Dixie's work of double tourniquets tightly bound above both the girl's knees.  
"We're here to give her every chance. Have you had first aid training of any kind?"

"Some. Uh, a few years ago. I'm a boy scout pack leader."

"Fair enough. My partner's gonna start Cindy on some oxygen.  
It'll help her get her breathing under control. That panting's just from some blood loss which we're gonna build up again by starting a couple of I.V.'s Keep tabs on her pulse and breathing rate, would ya? We're going to be busy down here for a bit."  
Gage said, indicating the area of Cindy's badly broken legs.

"Anything I can do.." said the frightened young man.

Marco kneeled on the ground and helped Roy cut away the woman's shirt sleeve so Roy could get access to her arm for a blood pressure. Johnny got on the land line.

"Rampart, this is Squad 51. How do you read?"

Joe Early came on the phone almost immediately.  
##Go ahead, 51.##

Johnny skipped preliminary information. "Triage victim, number sixty three." he read from Dixie's hastily applied tag. "A female approximately twenty years of age. She's semi conscious due to crushing injuries to both legs. Double tourniquets have been applied to her mid thighs. Stand by for the vital signs."

Gage buried the phone onto his neck and glanced over to where he could hear Cap and another paramedic crew working on what sounded like a steering wheel being bent with a K-12 and chains.  
He couldn't yet see the car through the throng of people and rescuers shifting around the silent train through the growing evening fog.

Marco said, "Johnny, that driver's not bad. We're putting him on a long board just as a precaution. His leaking gas tank made him something of a priority . I guess a train car clipped him when it jumped off the tracks."

Johnny nodded as he took the note pad from Roy containing what he had found on Cindy during his secondary survey.

Marco spoke, shifting his head to the right to where the many rescuers beyond Rampart's doctor and nurse had not yet reached.  
"I've got to go. Dixie's three cars from here, working her way towards the locomotive with Dr. Brackett. They're on the leading triage tag team."

"Go." Roy told him.

"Wait." Johnny contradicted. Lopez skidded to a halt.  
"Just how many cars are on this train?" Gage asked.

"The DOT counted 102 from the air. The middle section's on fire a half mile from here. Those Amtrak cars impacted a light industrial propane tank. Most of Los Angeles City's fire departments are handling that. Our units from the suburbs are on just triage and extrication detail."

Gage nodded, waving him on. "Radio us if you find another red tagged victim." he shouted. "We'll be done here in five minutes."  
he said pointing to the two ambulance attendants waiting next to the Mayfair that was shielding the girl victim from the milling crowds.

Lopez took off at a run.

"Well there's a tender mercy. We'll be nowhere near the fire."  
Johnny said to his partner. Then he began relaying vital signs to Rampart from what he read off the small pad of paper.

Two large bore I.V.s later and a neat feat of carefully positioned splinting kept the woman's circulation going into her feet. Johnny and Roy had to fight instincts to let city paramedics be the girl's main caregivers to the hospital. A yellow jacketted paramedic from Pasadena said, "We'll take real good care of her. She's got the first row for a helicopter flight in." And then they were gone in the rig with her, reds flashing, for the impromptu high school football field landing area.

Roy and Johnny quickly packed up their gear again and headed north on the strength of Marco's news about Dixie and Kel Brackett's whereabouts.

A yellow tagged man with a splinted broken forearm grabbed Roy as they went by. "Please, you gotta look for my son. He was in car number 49. Please. I can't find him...."

DeSoto set down his gear and supported him. "Easy, mister.  
Now where did you come from? You're headed in the wrong direction. Medical help is that way."

"He slipped away from me.." said Vince Howard, running up to them.  
"I got distracted by a couple of red tags. I can tell you more. His son's name is Jeffrey Mathers." he said taking the father's shoulders. "Come with me, maybe he's at the First Aid Station already. Let's go look for him. Stop bothering these two gentlemen."

"Please. Firemen. He's about eight years old, wearing a blue T shirt and y- yellow pants. I just gotta find him.." mumbled the injured man.

Johnny and Roy watched him get swallowed up by the fog until it seemed that it was only just the two of them alongside the twisted bulk of the train. DeSoto broke out a flashlight to locate the search marks crews ahead of them were leaving on the skin of each car to show the ones cleared of people.

"Sun's going down. It's gonna get cold. Man.. I hope we find everybody in time." said Gage. "This fog's getting thicker by the minute."

Roy found another rectangular shape jutting eerily up into the indigo sky. "Car 49. " he read on the side door. "And there's no search mark yet. Let's check it out."

Roy and Johnny left their gear on the rail road rocks by a lit cherry flare and together, they pulled open the train car door and went inside.

-  
Dr. Brackett was a whole train car ahead of Dixie, and he was shouting and calling. "Is anybody in here? Shout if you can hear me. I'm a doctor from Rampart Emergency!"

Dixie, too, was calling for anyone to hear, but she started to lag behind the much bigger Kel as she struggled over seats with her flashlight.

She had just climbed over a tangle of them when a ghostly figure ahead of her blocked her path. "Bellingham?" she said, stunned,  
recognizing the off duty paramedic. She grabbed his arm in the darkness. "Are you ok?" she asked, seeing blood running from his mouth and the large bruise on his head. She couldn't work it through her head that he was actually a passenger on the luckless train.

"M-My daughter. S-she was caught under me." said the bloody T-shirted man. "She.. she was fine a minute ago..."

"Where is she? Easy, Bob. Everything's gonna be ok." Dixie gasped.

"I'm keeping her...warm..but..." he said numbly, in heavy emotional shock.

Dixie McCall looked down to find an infant lying limp in his arms, her lips, feet and hands already turning blue. Dixie snatched the tiny baby's body from him and into her arms and pressed a couple of fingers against her chilled upper arm. "Kel ! Can you hear me?! I got a pulseless infant back here." she shouted out loud.

There was no reply from the way ahead.

"Kel! Answer me!"

Nothing but echoes replied in the horrible silence of the Amtrak.

Dixie fell into an upright seat and set her flashlight until it aimed at the metal ceiling, filling her arms with a bright white light so she could see clearly what she was doing. Right away, she tipped back the baby's head and tried to gently get breaths inside of the still, clammy chest. Nothing went in.

Bob began to sob. "I-- I know about that.. I...can't seem to.......move."

"She's obstructed. I'm going to clear it." Dixie said quietly, rapidly turning the limp infant over and beginning back blows and chest thrusts. On the third attempt, Dixie's shaky puffs of air finally got in.  
"Just sit there and relax, Bob. I'm sure help is on its way."

The Rampart nurse began the baby's CPR while her shocky paramedic father simply sobbed, watching them, with tears in his eyes.

-  
Johnny Gage startled when the third train door parted under their collective tugs to reveal a conscious victim, blinking up at them from the murk,  
under his flashlight. "Blue and yellow he said?"

"Yeah." Roy replied. "Jeffrey Mathers?"

The boy began to cry from where he lay in the rubble and he stuck out his arms towards DeSoto, reacting like a frightened boy half his age. "Help me... I can't find Daddy..."

DeSoto's paternal instincts soared and he reached out, gathering the damp shivering boy into his arms. "It's ok. Your father's fine.  
The doctors are taking care of him at a First Aid Station. How are you doing? Do you hurt anywhere besides that cut on your arm?"

The boy stayed mute, frozen with fear and he kept his eyes shut tight and his arms locked in a death's grip around Roy's neck.

Gage ran a flashlight over the boy's head and body. "There's a lot of blood here, but I don't think much of it is his at all." he said reaching around and taking the boy's carotid. "Pulse's fast but strong here." He pulled out a green tag and wired it to the front of Jeffrey's T-shirt with quick notes on the boy's injuries and his name.

"Whose is it?" Roy asked cradling Jeffrey's head on his shoulder,  
softly calming the boy. "Shhh.. You're all right. We're going to someone who can take you to your father right now."

Jeffrey nestled into Roy's arms a little deeper and he sighed,  
but his trembling didn't ease.

Gage cast his flashlight around in the fog. It alighted on a young shirtless teenager sitting upright in the next car with his head thrown back. Johnny hurried over, his mask dangling air bottle clanging as he crouched down and felt for a pulse at the teenager's pale creamy neckline. He shook his head and pulled out a penlight, showing Roy the fixed and dilated pupils he knew were there. Sighing with disappointment,  
he tipped the teen over, looking for the reason why he died. He found it when a hole six inches wide became visible in the small of his back. Blood still dripped from the wound. "Looks like a seat brace or something impaled him through the lower abdomen. It must've drilled right through his lower aorta."

"Come on." Roy said, making sure the young child's head was turned away so that he wouldn't see the dead train passenger.  
"Let's get Jeffrey outside. We can wrap him in some sheets from the burn kit to deal with this mild shock of his."

Johnny nodded, and gently returned the teenager's body to the position he originally found it in before he attached a black edged triage tag to its shoulder.

-  
Marco Lopez was bounding ahead in the treeline in a short cut back towards the train when he spotted movement in the brush. A blood spattered woman in navy walked out from under a pine tree. "Hey! Maam.. Are you ok?"

She gave no sign that she had even heard him.

Marco ran to her side, gripping her arms, "I'm a fireman. Let's get you out of here to some help."

The woman began to struggle and flail at him, screaming incoherently and Lopez was forced to protect himself by restraining her wrists.  
"Hey, hey hey. It's all right. You're out of the train and you're safe.  
I got you..." he told her.

Sobbing, the woman sank to the ground and her head drooped in unrelenting grief. "He's dead... Ohmygod..." she cried. "They're all dead.."

"Listen to me. You're ok and that's what's important right now.  
I'm Marco and I'm with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Shh, easy hon. What's your name? Can you tell me that? Once you let me check to see if you're ok, we'll think about finding your people on the train, all right?" he said, keeping a light arm around her shoulders. "Come on, can you tell me what it is?"

The woman gave a deep sigh and some of the dazed look left her eyes. "C--Candace Mallory..I'm from Santa Barbara..." and she started to cry again actively.

Marco penned down her information onto a green labelled triage tag for he could see no other injuries past a face cut and some scratches on the woman's arm. "Candace? My neighbor's named Candace." he smiled.

"Really?" she smiled.  
Candace felt an itch and reached up to scratch her face and startled when her hand came away bloody. "Oh, my g*d,  
I'm bleeding! OH!" she sobbed, starting to panic again.

Marco grabbed her hand and covered it with some gauze,  
wiping it clean. "Candace, you've only got a small cut on your lip. You're ok, really. See? I'm taking care of it. It'll stop very soon if you hold this right there. Yeah. Hold that 4X4 over your lip just like that."

"Ooohhh." Candace sighed, calming down. "What happened to us? One moment we were laughing and the next, the cars were screeching and...lurching.. " her face grimaced into fresh tears as torturing recollection returned in snatches..." We crashed, didn't we? What made it happen?"

"I don't know for sure. But I do know that everyone's getting help as fast as we can get it there. That's why I'm here." he reasoned. " And I can get some help going for you, too."

The woman smiled, suddenly seeing Marco as the firefighter he said he was. "You're from the fire department..?"

"That's right."

Candace suddenly gripped her leg. "Ow.."

"What is it? Your ankle?"

"I-- I think so. Hurts.."

"Here, let me take a look at it." Marco said, gently feeling the joint.

Candace winced slightly but that was all.

"Not broken. Do you think you can walk on it? I'd like to get you to some friends of mine down in that neighborhood below us."

Candace immediately panicked. "No! NO! I-- I can't go back down there!  
It's too dangerous! Crashing! There's so many people .... lying hurt... or much worse! Please, don't make me go back down there...." she begged.

"Easy, ok. ok. We'll find a way to go around." said Marco, planning ahead, checking out the terrain around them. He could just see Cap clearing from the automobile wreck from his vantage point. He pulled out his walkie talkie.  
"HT 51 to Engine 51." he hailed.

##Go ahead, Lopez.## came Captain Stanley's reassuring voice.

"I found a walker up here on top of the hill. I'm bringing her down.  
Green tag."

##10-4. We'll keep an eye out for ya. Watch yourself in the fog. It's getting pretty thick down here. Engine 51 out.##

Marco shrank down its antennae and started to stuff the HT back into his jacket pocket.

Candace was looking at it with fascination. "You mean, I'm really going to get out of here?" she said reaching for it.

Marco let her have it. "Yes."

The shocked woman hung onto the radio tightly as Marco helped her to stand. She wobbled, but then walked with more assurance faster and faster as she clung to the chattering radio like a life line.

"Come on, let's go this way.." Lopez told her quietly, placing his jacket around her shoulders.

-  
Dixie kept on working on the baby. And somehow, she had managed to get through to Bob Bellingham that Dr. Brackett was on the train with them. Bob's voice rang out louder than Dixie's.

"Dr. Brackett! Come quick. It's my baby daughter!" he yelled in full emotion. Fear gave him volume that Kel finally heard from where he was.

Kel Brackett returned back the way he had come. "Bob Bellingham?  
Is that you? Where's Dixie?!"

"Over here. Pulseless nonbreather. About twenty weeks old." she gasped as she worked, her fingers pumping firmly over the baby's breastbone.

"Keep going. Let's get them both out of here and to a chopper.  
You ok to continue her CPR?" Kel asked his nurse as he gave Bob's eyes a quick check where he sat numbly on the floor next to Dixie's passenger seat.

"I'm fine. Just move.." Dixie told him. "Just heard Johnny and Roy in the area. I think they're right outside!"

Brackett tried to peer out the train windows but fog made it impossible to see through them. Brackett pulled out a cherry flare, lit it and tossed it outside. Then he took the whistle from around his neck and blew on it hard, three times in several triple series. "That should bring em cracking with their full medical gear. Just keep going on her. Her pupils are reacting."

Kel helped Dixie navigate through the darkened car with words while he guided Bob by the shoulders through the same route.

Then they were outside under the night sky.

Leaping at his communications pack, Kel Brackett grabbed his walkie talkie the Base Commander from the Fire Department had given him. "Car 51. Baby down. Full arrest. Get a crew in here for a chopper run, fast!"

Then he bent to put a nasal cannula on Dixie so that she could give the baby more oxygen with each breath she delivered by mouth. "Let me know when you get tired. I'm going to go give Bob a once over, looks like he's going to black out on us."

"I will." she promised.

-  
Cap met Marco and Candace in a backyard. "I got her Marco.  
Go north! I just got a call from Stoker and Roy at Car number 50.  
They've a woman pinned under some debris and she's gonna need full spinal immobilization. They've got their hands full keeping her airway clear. Go help them out."

"Right, Cap." and he dashed off after taking his radio back from Candace.

Cap gently guided the slightly wounded woman towards the street where the rescue operations were ongoing.

"Wait.. where's he going?! I need him to help me get out of here!" she said with rising panic. "Please!" she struggled with Hank, not knowing who he was.

"It's ok. He's one of my men. I'm his captain. I'm taking over for him. Shh. It's ok. I got you. See? There are ambulances over there. There's no problem. " he promised. "Just calm yourself down a little. You're ok. You're going to get out of here right now.."

The panic slowly died out of her eyes but hot tears returned.  
"I am?"

"Yes, right now. Chet!" Cap said to a running form he recognized in the darkness.

"Cap?"

"I've a walking wounded. Take her over to the triage line, pal.  
Go easy with her. She's still a little confused but I don't think she's hurt seriously. Marco has her green tagged."

"I've got her." said Kelly. He aimed his flashlight on her triage tag.  
"Candace Mallory.. Hiya Candace.. My name's Chet. Right this way and I promise to lead you to some warm blankets and a soft bed. Would you like that?" he asked.

Like a child, the emotionally traumatized woman nodded yes and let herself be guided.

"After you get her over there head north. Stoker and Roy have a tricky one needing extrication." Cap ordered.

Chet waved his understanding as he took Candace's uninjured arm.

-  
Photo: Train wreck residential - An Amtrak.

Photo: Johnny Gage and Cap treating many in a triage setup.

Photo: Triage tags.

Photo: Roy and Johnny treating victims near the train by a Mayfair.

Photo: Bob Bellingham in a T- shirt with a pulseless infant in his arms.

Photo: A victim in the train, a boy, looking dazed and bloodied.

Photo: Marco sitting in the woods with a walking wounded.

Photo: Cap giving an injured walker over to Chet in heavy fog.

Photo: Stoker, Roy and Chet working on a badly injured lady under debris.

*  
From: Jeff Seltun Date: Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:27 pm Subject: Fast Track..

Johnny Gage ran from out of the fog heavily laden with medical gear. "Hey! Whoever blew that distress, give a yell! I'm coming!"

"Johnny?!" Kel Brackett shouted. "It's Brackett! Get over here! Dixie's got an infant CPR."

Gage ran, shifting his medical gear until the drug box was in his right hand. He spotted Dixie,  
sweating and bent over a very young baby in her lap.  
He slammed down onto his knees and clattered the drug kit's lid open. "You ok there?" he asked her as she worked. "How's your O2 supply?" he said seeing the glint of a cannula tubing around Dixie's face.

"It's fine.. Just hurry.." Dixie puffed. "I'm still not getting a pulse from her."

Kel looked up from where he was cutting away Bellingham's shirt to look for injuries. Bob was mostly out, and moaning and there was a fresh pool of vomit near his head. "Glad you're one who heard us, Johnny. Where's Roy?"

"On an entrapment. Two cars from here."  
Gage did a double take when he identified the man on the ground as being Craig Brice's fire paramedic partner. "Bob? I thought he was on vacation..." Johnny said, digging through the drug box for what he knew Brackett would order for the baby.

Dixie gasped, trying to smile. "So did we.." She shifted her position until the baby lay across Johnny's splint box, using its hard surface to help her efforts. "Come, on honey.. Breathe." she encouraged the limp infant under her compressions. "Daddy's really missing you." her voice begged. "And so am I."

Kel gave Gage the info he needed. "Bellingham's got nothing serious yet. Concussion maybe. But first things first. Johnny, skip the baby's airway, she's handling fine without one. We need to bump her heart into course V fib or better and we need to do that right now. Go right to her .01 mg epinephrine I.V. 1/10,000 into a 10ml Ringer's bolus line, without the bag. Scalp stick would be best. Follow it up with a two milliequivalent per kilogram of .5 bicarb in a push. Then take over for Dixie and get that baby onto that chopper ASAP! " he hollered over the roar of the helicopter landing in the street near their location. "Joe will take her first thing once you fly in. I just got done talking with him. He's got an endotrach set up and rewarming measures already waiting with a team. He'll deal with any hypoglycemia once she's intubated."

"Right, doc." Gage said, biting the plastic off a lactated fluid syringe.  
He angled his head around Dixie's and established the l.V. line during one of her ventilation pauses. "Epi's going in..." he shouted to Kel, grabbing up the baby's arm to feel for a brachial beat. His other hand taped up the Ringer's catheter port against the baby's temple."Ok, hold it a second, Dix." he nodded and then he plunged the medication's needle into the injection bulb, depressing the syringe's plunger. "I'm checking her!" he updated Brackett.

The nurse and paramedic held their breaths as they studied the infant for any reaction. The baby pinked and twitched. But her chest didn't rise at all. "Got her back, doc. But still no breathing."  
Johnny told Kel as Dixie once again took that over. "Bicarb's next."

"Good enough first step for me. Get that done and I'll be more than happy. Great going, you two. That's the chance we've been hoping for." Dr. Brackett smiled as he waved over some firemen who had run in top speed after hearing the distress whistle. "Over here!" he told the arriving crew trying to find them with their flashlights. "Adult male. Full C spine and a backboard. And all the spare O2 you got!"

The Pasadena men hustled over, speaking quickly into their radios.

Johnny stuck two EKG monitor pads over the baby's chest and abdomen and wired the infant for a quick peek and punched on the unit with a smack, breathing fast. Then he smiled. "Rate's just over 140, doc. Terrrrrific.." he celebrated.

"Sustainable." Kel agreed. "Any distension we need to worry about?"

Gage swept a couple of fingers over the baby's stomach. "Not much. Dixie's vents are still working ok."

"What's she at?" he asked about Dixie's rescue breathing rate.

"24 or so a minute." Johnny replied.

"Get a BP for me and then get her out of here." Kel ordered, nodding his satisfaction.

Johnny rushed, scrambling, and soon, he got one. "62 Systolic."

"That's flight adequate. Stable enough. All right. Dix, let him take over." Dr. Brackett said, getting the firemen's 02 to Bellingham through a non rebreather as others fitted the now unconscious man with a cervical collar and got him ready for a log roll. "Gage, run..." he ordered. "Leave without us. I'll call a ground ambulance for him."

The exhausted RN pulled off her nasal cannula as Johnny continued where she left off with the baby's mouth to mouth and nose ventilations,  
and she fitted it around his face, tucking the O2 bottle under his arm. She pulled the EKG patches off the baby girl's sweaty skin, tossing the wired leads aside and then she nodded. "Johnny, you're set. I'll help you carry your gear." she panted, shouting over the roar of the rescue chopper, blowing leaves and debris over them, as it sped up rotors after Dr. Brackett waved a signal for its pilot to get ready for a fast priority lift off.

Johnny wrapped the baby into a blanket and ran, maintaining careful ventilations. Dixie followed him with the drug box and Gage's HT. "Dr. Brackett's now on your channel." she told him. "Use him if she worsens again. I'll keep an ear out, too." she promised,  
transferring the baby back to him after he leaped high enough to board the hovering helicopter.

The last sight she had of Bob Bellingham's tiny daughter and Johnny was when their two silhouettes merged into one as the focused paramedic gave the baby the breaths she so badly needed as gently as he could without harming further, her already resuscitation bruised body.

Then they were gone in a swirl of dirt into the night sky.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Gage giving mouth to mouth to a baby.

Photo: A rescue chopper buzzing the squad.

Photo: Brackett in an intense closeup.

Photo: Dixie holding something in a yellow shock sheet.

*  
From: Sam Iam lafddispatchery... Date: Wed Sep 15, 2004 9:43 am Subject: The Flip of a Coin..

Roy DeSoto glanced over his shoulder to where Jeffrey Mathers lay on a burn sheet. "How are ya doing over there?" he asked the boy in the blue shirt and yellow pants who was just a lighter shadow in the middle of a darker one on the ground about thirty feet away from the tangle of metal that held Roy's current top priority.

"I- I'm ok... Where's dad?" the eight year old blinked up into the darkness. "Why aren't we going to him right now?"  
he said, still afraid of moving on his own.

"Because we're a little short handed." Roy replied, looking down.  
Stoker and Chet were handling his trapped victim's airway suctioning while he held the badly injured woman's head still. "And we've a lady here who needs our help just as soon as we can get it to her. Just keep wrapped up like you are and you'll warm up soon, I promise. Someone IS coming for you." hissed the fire paramedic when his knotting forearms started cramping up.

"ok.." said Jeffrey Mathers.

The three from Station 51 were worried.

Chet grunted. "Ughh.. I can't get it lifted any higher. Something's really wrong down here. I think this whole section's attached to the strut pinning her under here. We're gonna need a portapower or a K-12 to make any progress at all. "

Roy nodded in agreement as another fireman fitted the woman with a cervical collar to free up DeSoto's hands. "This train car is buried too deep. Nothing short of heavy equipment is going to do much of anything."

Mike Stoker glanced up at his crewmates with a frustrated look.  
"That won't work either. The ground's too soft around us. Something else's gonna have to be done."

Roy dragged over a battered suitcase with a free hand and used that to hold the woman's head in alignment with her body. She lay partially under two heavy crossbeams from the chassis of the train car on her left side and her face was pressed almost completely against the train car's skin.

Stoker dropped the suction wand onto the woman's chest and quickly replaced the oxygen mask over her nose and swollen mouth.  
"I got her clear. She's breathing fast and shallow but well enough."

"Is her jaw fractured?" DeSoto asked, as another trail of blood started dripping down to the dirt.

"No, I think she just bit her tongue. All of her teeth are there."  
Mike replied.

Chet Kelly got on his HT from where he was jammed up between the beams and the semi conscious woman while he supported her torso with his knees to ease her labored breathing. "HT 51 to Engine 51.  
Cap!" he hailed loudly over the sound of hammering and hand tossed debris as the rescue workers around them tried to dig down to the trapped woman's level from the other side.

##Go ahead, 51.## said Hank.

"We're gonna need all the tools ASAP. A bobcat is definitely out.  
Stoker says we're over a sand pile."

##10-4, Marco and I will run a set of em to ya ourselves. Two minutes!"

Chet coughed and set the radio down quickly next to his head on a metal sheet as he tried once more to lift some mass off the woman's stomach. He failed.

The woman's breath gushed out of her mouth at the return of weight and she moaned when she couldn't inhale any more. Her eyes rolled up into her head.

"It's slipping!" Chet gasped.

Immediately, two diggers wormed their way under the creaking car to Chet's location and joined him in a desperate attempt to stop the tipping, barely counter balanced, car. The edge of the train chassis lifted up six inches.

Roy helped the woman revive by helping her breathe with an ambu bag until her eyes started regaining focus once more.  
"It's ok now. We stopped it. Just relax. We're gonna get you outta here." he said insistently into her ear.

Soon, the woman pushed the face mask away and struggled to blink clarity back into her vision."S--Something's squeezing.... *gasp* ...me." she gurgled. "ahhhHH!"

"I know. I know.. We're trying to get down below your waist to see what it is and deal with it." Roy said. "And about your pain,  
I've a doctor on the way who'll take care of that just as soon as he gets here. What's your name?"

The woman didn't answer, working hard to breathe. She spit continuous blood out of her mouth. Roy helped her once again on the bag from where she hung face sideways.

He motioned for another fireman to take over for him while he got another blood pressure reading on her free arm. It was ominous and matched her rising tachycardia.

He climbed out of the hole and grabbed two I.V. bags of Ringer's and started to prep them. He shouted down to Chet. "Kelly, see if you can find any I.D. on her. If we have a name we'll have a chance to learn what her blood type is off some medical records to pave the way for a possible transfusion."

"Will do.." and the curly haired fireman's feet disappeared back into a hole at the diggers' feet. He came out with a battered tan wallet, passing it off hand to hand until it got into Roy's grip. "That was in her front jeans pocket." came Kelly's muffled voice.

Roy flipped it open and startled.  
"Mathers?" his eyes involuntarily shifted back into the direction of the scared little boy resting out of sight nearby. He bent close to the woman's ear. "Julie.. can you tell me if you have a little boy or not?"

"I.... yes. It's Jeffrey." she said muzzily during a lucid moment. "The three of us just wanted...*cough* to take a little trip..." she groaned.

Mathers screamed when something on top of her under the train car, shifted. Immediately the men around her, froze, listening to the creaking mass around them. Bloody tears leaked out her eyes and Roy saw tiny blood vessels start to burst in them.

::Traumatic crush injury..:: DeSoto identified.  
"Julie," said Roy urgently. "Listen to me. We've got your son out. He's ok. And so's his father. We...Jeffrey's right here at the top of the hill. Do you hear me? Jeffrey's ok.. And Mr. Mathers only has a broken arm. He's waiting for us at the First Aid Station."

"J---ff? And Jared?" she gasped hoarsely. She began to fade again and so did her brief smile. Mrs. Mather's eyes began to close as breathing suddenly became more difficult.

"No, no.. no. " ordered Roy. "Julie? Open your eyes. Can you hear me?"  
he said, rubbing some knuckles into her breast bone. "You've got to stay awake as long as you can. We need your help."

Julie jerked and blinked. "W-where's Jeffrey?" she panted, then a jolt of pain made her cry out.

"Thirty feet away from us. He's safe." Roy replied, cupping her face into his hands. "Just keep focusing on me and not the train, all right?"  
replacing the lighter oxygen mask tightly over her mouth. "We'll have it off of ya as soon as we can."

"I--I want to see him." she bubbled, gripping Roy's hand tightly with her own bloody one. DeSoto didn't know what was best.  
::Should we spare the boy? By not letting him see his mother like this? Or should we bring him down here? In order to give her a good reason to live?::

Right then, Dr. Brackett and Dixie McCall arrived. "Roy, what do you got?!"

Roy's head shot up. "Traumatic chest or abdomen." he answered instantly. "B.P.'s 104. Respirations 26 and shallow with active oral bleeding. She's positioned left lateral, recumbent. Something's pressing her down badly. There's petechiae all over. Scleral, too."

"Two large bore Ringer's Lactate I.V.s, wide open. But only if her chest's clear."

"Got them right here. Her lung sounds are still dry. That blood's from a tongue bite."

Brackett's face twitched. "Ok, get em in and running."

DeSoto had to peel off Julie's powerful grip on his hand, which had left bruises behind.

"How's her consciousness level?" Dixie asked from another direction above him.

"Awake, groggy. Drifting when she gets tired of trying to breathe. We've been helping her. Also, she's feeling a fair amount of pain here." Roy said, swabbing down places on Julie's arms for the I.V.s.

"I'm coming down there with some MS." Kel said, aiming a flashlight at Julie's face. "Keep that ambu handy. How soon until she's extricated?"

Roy looked to Chet.

"Don't know Dr. Brackett. She's in here real tight. A whole crew was radioed a few min-"

Cap's shout interrupted him.

"They're right there." Kelly amended, continuing to dig with his gloves at Roy's feet, dog paddling dirt away from a hole as fast as he could so a circular saw could fit inside of it easily.

Kel leaped into the space Chet had made and soon injected the pain medication. "What's her name?" he asked Roy.

"Mrs. Julie Mathers." said four people.

Brackett glanced around with a nod and he crouched down next to Roy. A firemen handed him a helmet to wear and he put it on.

"Mrs. Mathers. I'm Doctor Brackett. I just gave you something to help with the pain. Tell me, can you feel your legs or anything below your waist?"

Julie nodded. "I feel....everything." she grunted with effort. "Where's Jeffrey? Please.. I want to see my son right n--" and she stiffened as another shift in the car jolted through her. Mather's eyes bugged out when an inexorable pressure landed on her stomach. She started to purple and her consciousness suddenly struggled, desperately.

Brackett yelled. "Get it off her now!" he shouted, gripping her chin around the cervical collar as two sets of hands began using the ambu bag to try to get oxygen back into Julie's lungs. Animation left Mather's features and she started to convulse as blood flow began to cease going into the lower half of her body.

"Anything getting in doc?" Roy asked, snatching up an endotrachial tube.

"No tube! The problem's because her lungs are being compressed.  
Get it off her guys ASAP. We've no ventilations!" Brackett yelled.

Captain Stanley and Marco worked the fastest K-12 cutting arcs they had ever made, one from each side, until they met in a semi circle at the top. Many hands punched the severed piece in and then lifted it out as soon as it cooled enough to touch.

Julie's chest rose suddenly when the wall section's heaviness left it. She was quickly hyperventilated until her color returned to normal and until she began to resist it once more, moaning in feeble complaint.

A floodlamp from above then illuminated the newly freed gap leading inside the train.

Dixie gasped.

Brackett and Roy and all the rescuers paused in shock.

A four inch by four inch pole had been driven through Julie's stomach just below the level of her diaphragm on her right side.

Kelly's voice shouted bright and scared. "There's another victim in here! He's been impaled on this thing, too! Through his lower abdomen." and he grabbed the nearest body part to him, a man's bare foot, that was jutting out from under a chunk of metal, to test for circulation.

The new victim's voice began to scream. "I'm here. I'm alive! Agh.  
Get me out. Please. Get me out of here! I've been s-stabbed."

-  
Kel Brackett's mind was racing. He had done everything he could to arrange things. Julie Mathers merited an emergency surgical attempt to save her life lying right where she was. But so did the second man lying beneath her.

The Rampart physician took the stethoscope cups out of his ears slowly. ::What should I do?::

Scott Kincaid was dozing fitfully under his two I.V.s and he was still mumbling, begging for escape.

The firemen had asked Kel repeatedly if he wanted them to cut the pole between the two with their saws in order to get them out of the train but he refused to let them.

"The vibrations and movement from any cutting will most likely kill both of them! You know as well as I do that the pole is acting as a tourniquet internally. No, we're gonna have to operate on them as soon as we get it freed using something with less impact, an arc welder perhaps. Then we can slide them both off it when it collapses." Brackett outlined to the fire and rescue crews.

All the men looked at each other uncomfortably.

Roy grabbed Kel's arm. "There's only one of you, doc. They will both bleed massively once they're freed. And there's no way you can operate on both of them at the same time...not fast enough.." he urged, the situation was already very clear in his mind in a surge and Brackett saw that his senior paramedic's eyes were painfully haunted.

"I know that. This is triage, Roy..." he said, filling the noisy hole with a sudden calm horror. "Pick one."

"Don't ask me to make that kind of choice, Doctor Brackett." DeSoto whispered hollowly, stepping away from the bloodied doctor, angling his dusty head. "I can't. " he gasped. "Not ever."

"Then let me make it for you. You are relieved of the responsibility."  
Kel said firmly, hardening.

"You can't play god with their lives..." Dixie said to Kel forcefully, her face paling. "No one should."

"What other choice do I have?" Kel said a little loudly, crouching between his two now stabilized, gravely injured patients. He swept both his hands out into a frustrated shrug.

From the ground below them, a weak feminine voice sighed.  
"You can let US decide who. It's our lives, doctor. Not yours. "

Julie Mathers and Scott Kincaid were lying quietly and both their sets of eyes were silently watching them all, glazed from pain medications.

Between them, their hands were clasped calmly together for comfort as if Julie had never uttered such a horrible statement.

"But first, let me see my son." the mother requested.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap with a porta power.

Photo: Marco crouched with a crowbar.

Photo: Victim getting a C collar.

Photo: Man's foot sticking out of debris.

Photo: Roy feeling a carotid on a woman.

Photo: Brackett with bad news.

*  
From: "Cassidy Meyers" Date: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:08 am Subject: Miracle Baby..

Dr. Early and Dr. Morton met Johnny Gage at the emergency desk at a run. They both were in blue surgical gowns, but Mike already wore his blue mask while Joe's was still dangling around his neck. Johnny puzzled at that odd observation for a total of two seconds. Then Dr. Early spoke, breaking his curiosity.

"Treatment Four, we're already set up, Johnny." Joe told the busy paramedic. "Has she started breathing on her own yet?"

Gage spoke between the puffs of air that he was giving the baby and he let himself be guided to the right place. "About one every four, doc. She's really cold. But her pulse's hanging in there." he said, pulling off the cannula he wore for the infant. An orderly took the oxygen cylinder out from under his arm just as it fizzled out the last psi.

The doors to the treatment room opened on a surgical setup.

"This isn't sterile, Johnny. Set her down." said Joe, patting the exam bed while he gloved up and put on his mask.

Mike Morton got busy with a warming probe and he started calibrating a respirator to the baby girl's size and age. "She's young.."

Gage nodded. " Dix said she's about twenty weeks old.  
This is paramedic Bob Bellingham's little girl. He was on the train because he was off duty on vacation. My guess is that he was on his way into the city for a pediatric doctor's visit."

"H*ll of a way to get one." said Morton through his surgical mask while he flicked the baby's feet to test for her awareness level.

Gage carefully set the limp baby girl down on the treatment bed, supporting her head and spine.

Joe Early immediately listened to her chest with a stethoscope while Morton set a neonate positive pressure O2 mask over her face. "I've a rate about 150. " he said, looking at Johnny for a reason why it was so high.

"I looked her over really good. Her sternum's swollen but intact." Johnny said. "That tach's not trauma related. Brackett ordered some serious epinephrine. That might be why she's racing."

"How much?" Morton asked.

".01 mg of 1/10,000. " Gage replied, as he stuck baby sized EKG pads and leads onto the distressed infant lying between them under the exam light.

"Ok, thanks Johnny, we got it from here. Nice work bringing her back."

"No problem, doc. Bob'll be flying in to you on the next trip. He's been in and out of consciousness. I just thought I'd warn you. He might be a handful trying to find out where his daughter went to."

Mike nodded. "I'll tell Carol once we've stabilized her condition."

"Is it bad out there?" Joe asked Johnny.

"Yes. We're still doing Initial Triage, with Dixie and Brackett at the head of the main team. We're at Car 52 out of 102."

Morton whistled through his mask. "That's a big passenger train. Get set for massive casualties once you hit the sleeper cars."

"Sleeper cars?" Gage said, watching the two doctors examine the baby for injuries beyond the obvious ones.

"Yeah. Amtrak commuters pay a premium for a two by five foot cubby bunk recessed into a wall."  
Mike gave a shudder. "I never get a ticket for one myself. Reminds me too much of a coffin."

"Maybe those provided some protection to the riders.." Johnny thought. "Being that they weren't in a lot of space to get thrown around in too much during the derailment."

Morton shook his head in disagreement, making a noise of negation. "Most likely that snugness backfired.  
Doesn't take much to crush in the roof of a train car."

Johnny frowned at that. Gage sighed, mentally letting go of his tiny patient. "I'd better get back. Chopper's waiting.  
You're sure she's gonna be all right?" he said pointing his talkie antennae at the bed as he backed up reluctantly,  
not wanting to leave his patient.

Joe grinned. "I guarantee it. She's checking out over 90%"

"Good. That's real good, docs. Thanks." Johnny said,  
looking very paternal.

"Say, Johnny.." said Dr. Early.

"Yeah?"

"When you get back, check in with Dr. Brackett, ASAP.  
He mentioned something about emergency field surgery at Car number 50."

"That'll be Roy's case. He was working with an entrapment.  
I'm on it." and then Johnny turned with an effort and was gone.

"Devoted, isn't he?" Morton remarked.

"That's what makes him one of the best." Joe commented.

The fluting tones off the EKG monitor rose another ten beats a minute and Joe ordered the baby sedated to rest her metabolism and heart. He got down to business and started to intubate the tiny baby.

Mike blinked around his surgical cap and mask.  
"Will she need the crich?"

"No, a 2.5 worked just fine. Let's get her hooked up to the bird." he ordered. "Set it to fifty percent in case she's got some pulmonary bruising from the CPR."

Joe smiled and stroked the sleeping infant's face with a finger. "What a lucky little girl. Six fragile pounds against 400 tons of crashing locomotive and all she's got to worry about is a little hypothermia.. Absolutely amazing.."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Joe in scrubs talking to Gage in a treatment room.

Photo: A baby on positive pressure vents under a stethoscope.

Photo: A baby getting intubated in a surgical setting.

Photo: Crowds of people around a crashed Amtrak.

Photo: A crashed train car can spray labelled as "empty".

*  
From: "Champagne Scott" Date: Thu Sep 16, 2004 2:02 pm Subject: How You Leave the World Behind...

Dixie lowered her head so the sudden tears erupting in her eyes, wouldn't be seen. She waited to see how Kel reacted to his patients getting involved in their own life saving or death decision.

Dr. Brackett immediately addressed Julie's concern.  
"I have no intention of keeping you separated from your son, Mrs. Mathers. In fact, I'll send my paramedic right now to go fetch him." and he nodded up at Roy to leave the hole and get the boy. "We were just simplifying things until we learned the physical conditions of both you and Mr. Kincaid."

"Simplifying.. Yes, " Scott coughed into his oxygen mask.  
"That's what we're going to be doing, isn't it?"

Brackett remained silent, as he took first Scott's blood pressure,  
then Julie's to mark the new readings on their triage tags.

Julie started weeping and Dixie went immediately to her side to hold her hand. "Shh,.. we'll figure this out. I-It doesn't have to be this way.." she whispered. "Let Dr. Brackett think a moment." Mrs. Mathers' weeping created spasms along the pole spearing her and she grasped at it reflexively in a choked silent scream. Dixie helped hold it still, along with Marco.

"Give the morphine time to work." Kel said. "Another five minutes."

Scott was shocky and bitter. "Is that how long we have? Another five minutes?" he gasped, helping his attending firemen hold Julie's pole that was impaling him, too, steady, while others bound his wound to control his bleeding. "Forgive me doctor, for a little gallows humor on my part. It's just that these circumstances are more....*choke* than bizarre. I'm a lawyer and so this strikes me as just a bit......funny. I didn't expect to go this way when I got up this morning."

Julie almost started laughing through her grief and fear because of shock and the morphine. But then she filled with uncontrollable sobbing when Scott's joke silenced.

Mr. Kincaid caught her grief and magnified it.  
Scott kept tight hold of Julie's hand the whole time he spoke to his rescuers. "We're perfect strangers," he said of himself and Mrs. Mathers. "And yet I feel like I can't ever let go of her."

"Mr. Kincaid.." Kel began. "I'm so sorry. But we have to hurry.  
The hemorrhaging you both are experiencing will soon reach a critical point. Surgery will have to begin immediately."

"Scott. We can't let them go through....*gasp* what we're going through.  
It's..not right for us to make them choose........who lives......and who dies.." Mathers groaned making eye contact with the man.

Kincaid's face twisted in sudden remorse and sadness.  
Then he mumbled. "Can you all leave us alone for a moment?"

Reluctantly, the firemen, nurse and doctor retreated out of the hole.

When they were gone, Scott drew a bloody coin out of his pocket and he opened up Julie's fingers one by one tenderly before he set it onto her trembling palm. "This is the only thing I can think of for us to do. I guess I can live or die by the outcome. Money always talks anyway. *cough* Heads or tails?"

"Heads." Julie said woozily.

"Ok, I've got tails. Ready?" and Scott hefted their joined hands up for a toss of the fateful quarter into the air...

"Ready.." she replied.

*Pingggggggg......*

The flying piece of bloodstained silver glinted in the light.

-  
Roy arrived back with a bundled Jeffrey Mathers following along behind and he knelt by the boy and told him that his mother was under the train. "Don't be afraid, Jeffrey. Your mother's been given some medicine and she isn't feeling her injuries.  
She's... she wants to see you."

"Is she going to get out of the train?"

"We're still working on it." DeSoto answered truthfully.

"Yes, sir.." said the frightened boy. He took Chet Kelly's hand long enough to climb down under the lantern lights and into the hole.

At the sound of her son's approach, Scott and Julie both covered where the pole had gored them with a free blanket so the child would not see it. And then they both let go of their desperate stranger bonding hand clasp.

Julie quickly dried her face and held out her arms to her son. "Jeffrey?"

Jeffrey rushed into them and into a deep hug. "Mom. I was so scared, but they took really good care of me. Dad's ok. A policeman is trying to find him right now so he can come see you, too, but they said it might take a long time to find him."

Julie started crying anew at the mention of her husband.  
"That's ok." she said smothering him full of kisses and she smoothed his hair down around the dried blood and dirt that had crusted there.  
"And soon, you'll get to the hospital where you can get cleaned up.  
Won't that be nice?" she said, hiding a grimace of pain from the pole getting bumped by Jeffrey's back.

Jeffrey looked up from his mother's embrace. "Who's that?" he asked pointing to Mr. Kincaid lying nearby.

"That's Scott, another train passenger. He works in the city as a lawyer, just like what you want to be when you grow up."

"Hi Scott. "

"Hi Jeffrey.." said Mr. Kincaid. "Are you ok?"

"Yes." replied the dirty, bloody boy. Then his fingers found his mouth, "Are you and mom ok?"

Julie and Scott suddenly met eyes and rejoined hands and they both couldn't stop the tears from flowing down their faces.

"Jeffrey, honey. I have always told you the truth about things whenever we talk right?" Julie began.

"Yes." the boy said, touching the oxygen mask around his mother's face.

Scott blinked and a fit of coughing interrupted mother and son.

Then Mrs. Mathers spoke. "Well I'm going to tell you something now,...that is going to be very very hard for you to understand or even to think about. But,... I have to say it now while I still can."

Jeffrey started to cry, instinctively sensing the worst. "Are you hurt very badly, mom?"

"Yes, Jeffrey, I am. And so's Mr. Kincaid. And ...and..the doctor here can help only one person get better because we're so far away from the hospital."

"...no..." murmured Jeffrey, clinging to Julie's neck. "Shut up, Mommy. Don't say that. I don't want you to."

"And Mr. Kincaid and I have decided.... who ..stays behind."

Next to them, Scott's head began to sink lower and lower as unconsciousness began to set in.. and he whispered over and over again. "I'm sorry, Julie.. I'm sorry............Julie...."

Jeffrey's mouth gaped open in wordless grief when he heard Scott's faint admission and he began to wail and cry desperately. "NO.. make them save YYyoou, mom.. Please...Make them save--.."  
and he began to hold tight to Julie's shoulders, tangling his fingers into her damp hair.

Julie felt bad jolts of pain but she managed to speak.  
"Shhh, Jeffrey. You have to go, so the doctors can start to work on Mr. Kincaid. I...just wanted to say goodbye.  
And to tell you how deeply I love you ..and Daddy." she weeped.

"Noo, MOm..... no..!" Jeffrey wheezed, trying to bury his mother's words under the oxygen mask with his cheek and hands.

At his cries the rescue personnel returned. And Johnny Gage was among them. No one had to ask what the outcome of the private decision had been.

Quietly, crews swirled around Scott Kincaid and Dr. Brackett barked orders for more I.V.'s and a new one of whole blood of Scott's blood type.

Julie said to Roy as he approached, "You take really good care of him...." she demanded, hot tears burning her cheeks.  
"Jeffrey.. I love you..." she whispered into her raging son's ear and then he was torn away from her grasp by the firemen.

Julie lay back down in shock as a numbing darkness began to nibble at the corners of her awareness and she watched Jeffrey's struggling form under the paramedic's arm as if it were a silent slow motion movie.

The doctors were ready to drape Scott's abdomen when Dixie noticed that Scott had Julie's hand once more in an unbreakable grip.

"Hold it. Hold it.." she snapped and McCall leaned close to Scott's ear. "What is it, Scott?"

"Help her instead. I........have no family...." and then he fell unconscious.

Dixie's face fell under a flood of tears with high emotion and she shouted. "Dr. Brackett! Did you--?"

"I heard." he said bruskly, already transferring positions to crouch over Julie Mathers while he threw on a surgical gown, mask and sterile gloves.  
"Everybody. We're gonna cut her free without waiting for the arc welder. Don't worry about spinal immobilization. This is life saving measures first. Get set for heavy bleeding and have hemostats standing by. I am almost one hundred percent certain that only one lobe of her liver is involved. There's no time to lose! " he snapped.

Then he paused briefly and looked at Chet after studying Scott Kincaid's slack face with an unreadable expression. "Fireman Kelly, please stay with Mr. Kincaid after we move him out of the way." he ordered gently. "Have him brought out to a paramedic team. There's always a remote chance that somebody else,  
apart from us, can still save him."

Julie Mathers didn't hear any of the last two minutes. Her eyes had closed and she drifted away into a deep coma under Dixie's hands.

-  
Roy and Johnny laid Jeffrey Mathers down onto the ground.

DeSoto felt for his pulse. "He's fainted." the emotionally overcome paramedic said hoarsely.

"Cover him up." said Gage, equally effected. "Dr. Brackett's going to need me in there. Joe ordered me to help him."

"Go. I'll stay until the boy's father arrives.." DeSoto said protectively cradling Jeffrey's head while he monitored the boy's shallow breathing.

::A nightmare. I can't believe this is happening.:: Roy thought.

But then the radio next to him crackled. ##HT 51 to Squad 51##

"Squad 51." Roy acknowledged. It was Johnny and he said four simple words.

##They went with her.##

Roy dropped his head into a grimy hand. "10-4." And he started breathing faster. His chest hurt in sympathetic pain, as the great emotional burden that he had been an unwilling witness to, suddenly lifted away at his partner's terse statement. The radio fell bonelessly from his hand.

A few minutes later he began to gently stroke Jeffrey Mathers forehead to wake him gently, as his father would have done had he been there.

Roy hastened the boy's recovery with a soft lullaby that only they could hear.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Firemen over a bloody boy on a ground stretcher.

Photo: Woman being given oxygen by a rescue worker.

Photo: A man with a flail chest and petechiae flecking on his skin.

Photo: Brackett and Johnny Gage gowning up into surgical clothes.

Photo: Dixie, Roy and Johnny listening to an HT, looking left.

*  
From: Katherine Bird kathbird01y... Date: Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:23 pm Subject: Salvage

Hank Stanley gripped Chet Kelly's shoulder when he saw the stokes carrying Scott Kincaid being lifted from underneath the train. He noticed how unusually drawn the fireman's face was as he verbally stepped up the pace of the silent extrication team.

51's captain was about to ask him about it when Roy DeSoto, ambulance loading a young boy, gave his head a miniscule shake. "That man's downgrading into a black tag, Cap."  
the paramedic said, pointing to the bundle of triage tags swinging from his jacket's halligan tool for clarity. "Brackett's asked Chet to stay on a one to one with him...until there's an outcome, one way or the other."

"You mean those paramedics working on Chet's victim won't be able to save him?" Captain Stanley asked.

"Probably not. He has a penetrating abdominal hemorrhage that only rapid surgery can rectify."

"But isn't Dr. Brackett working down there with you guys?"  
Hank puzzled.

Roy looked down as he closed the ambulance doors containing Jeffrey Mathers and his father. "He's operating on a woman who has the same thing. This is her husband and son right here." he replied softly, smacking the back doors of the Mayfair to let the driver know that he could leave for Rampart. "That man told our team to rescue her instead of him. It was.... incredibly brave,  
what he did."

Hank didn't know what to say and he watched Chet kneel down beside Scott Kincaid's head when the man began to stir as the high flow IVs started performing their function. "How long?"  
Cap asked, feeling sympathy for Chet and his difficult task.

"Any time now." Roy DeSoto answered. Then he grabbed up his gear and joined Dixie, who was just as pale and emotionally glazed as Chet, for moving on to the next train car for triage categorizing.

Hank caught Chet's eye and held up his radio and tapped it with a finger in supporting emphasis before he returned to the Command Post to get word on the next extrication site assignment.

-  
Scott looked up and saw a fireman crouched over him.  
"So you're the lucky guy, eh?" he coughed.

"Sir, just try to relax.." Chet said, taking off his helmet.

Kincaid started to laugh weakily, in acceptance of his situation.  
"It's really not so bad, you know."

"What isn't?" Kelly asked.

"Dying." whispered Scott, trying to focus his eyes.

A paramedic from Ninety Nine's working over Scott's stomach immediately spoke up. He did not yet know how bad Scott's injury really was. He made a sound of negation. "Wrong answer, man." he warned his victim. "Nobody speaks the D word when my partner and I are on the job. It's a real downer."  
he firmly aimed at Scott.

"Would you tell him how it is?" Kincaid tossed his head at Chet.  
"Better to burst their bubble now then later, kid."

Kelly licked dry lips and interjected a reply when the Asian paramedic asked his partner about mechanism of injury findings. "Guys,  
Mr. Kincaid was freed from a four inch diameter pole that was driven completely through his body. This injury has a large exit wound which is hidden from the packing Brackett tried to use to staunch the bleeding. You can't see it because of the stokes sheeting. Kel tagged that black color for a reason. It's far too late to do anything."

The paramedic didn't even acknowledge Kelly's input and he mumbled to his partner. "Everyone's an expert." and then he tuned Kelly out as they took vital signs readings on Scott and opened up a biophone channel to their hospital.

Mr. Kincaid lifted a hand to the glove Chet had placed on his shoulder and he gripped it. "Promise me you'll get Julie to her son and husband."

"Sir.. "

"Promise me, fireman."

"I will, Mr. Kincaid."

"Tell her that it was worth going. Ladies are ....always first into the life boat." he grimaced sharply. Then his eyes widened and the shallow breaths under the O2 mask quickened. "My G*d, It's beautiful over there." he said looking at a point beyond his feet at the train. "Do you see all those people? I wonder who they are..."

Chet looked up and saw only the damp fog and cherry flares lying on the ground in front of the Amtrak car. "Where?" He saw no one. When he looked down, the animation had faded out of Scott's eyes.

"V-Fib!" shouted one of the paramedics, studying Scott's monitor.

"I got the paddles.." answered the other.

Kelly felt a smack against his stomach. It was an ambu bag.

The blond paramedic said, "Do I have to show you how to use this?" he snarled.

Chet reluctantly took Scott's face into his hands and began bagging the arrested lawyer. Aggressive CPR soon followed with multiple shocks, including an IC epinephrine order, but the look of peace never left Scott's bloody face. It was that expression that Chet concentrated on until he was shoved aside when it came time for the ambulance doors to be closed by attendants.

The Cadillac hearse ambulance bearing Kincaid's body lurched onto the roadway and filled the night with its obnoxious lights and siren.  
It retreated around the fire trucks into the distance.

Chet watched it go for a long time before he rubbed the tears out of his eyes. Then he peeled off his work gloves one by one methodically and left them abandoned on the bumper of a fire truck.

The smoky fog swallowed Kelly up as he turned to go look for Marco, Stoker and Captain Stanley.

-  
It was two days later at a rehabilitation check point. Station 51 had been on duty a full forty eight hours with only brief periods granted for rest and recharging in a nearby tent next to a chow trailer. All the passengers on the Amtrak had been located and processed. Dr. Brackett and Dixie McCall had gone back to Rampart as soon as all the train cars had been cleared.

Johnny Gage rubbed his dirty face and nudged a dozing Roy with a foot where he was slumped uncomfortably on some boxes. "Want to go back to the First Aid Station and make a phone call?"

"To ask about Julie Mathers ?" DeSoto wondered, fatigue lining his face.

"Yeah. Day before yesterday, it looked like she was being resuscitated when they got her onto that chopper."

"That was because of the anesthesia, Johnny. Not because she crashed." Roy mumbled, reaching for a wrinkled pear from a food box. "She's doing fine."

Johnny frowned in irritation. "And you know that for a fact huh..." he said with mild exhausted sarcasm.

"I do. I saw the EKG monitor when they passed by. I saw nothing atypical in her rhythm. She was just being breath supported."

Johnny shot to his feet. "Yeah, well. That call will lift a whole lotta weight from my shoulders, and yours. Let's go."

"Johnny now hold on. Y-You don't even know to which hospital she was flown."

"I can guess." Gage answered after a short pause. "Didn't most of the victims from that section of the train go to Bethseda?"

"The non critical ones did, yes. And most of the bodies we're recovering now are going there, too. But I heard all the priority cases went to other places. They rerouted randomly on to the next available trauma department when any hospital reached its capacity. First Aid won't have that information attached to any victim names. It's too soon." DeSoto reasoned.

Johnny sat down heavily and set his head against the wall, closing his eyes. "I hate this aspect of my job. Not knowing how people turn out."

"It's the price we pay for being first responders I guess." Roy said,  
getting up. "Come on, we better resupply the squad and go on stand by for the salvage crews in case there are any injuries."

"I'm so tired, I can barely register how many fingers I'm holding up." he groaned, not moving.

"We'll grab some more coffee once we get there."

Johnny slowly followed Roy out to the squad.

-  
Captain Stanley was positioned by the two Amtrak locomotive engines when his walkie talkie beeped with an emergency call.

##Engine 51, L.A. ##

"L.A., this is Engine 51."

##Engine 51. Recovery crew spotters report an accident dust cloud near your vicinity. Possible vehicular. At the intersection of Court Crossing and Hwy 38. ##

Hank scratched his chin, waving over Chet, Stoker and Marco,  
giving them the sign that they were moving out on an active engine call. "Any ideas on how many people are involved?"

##Negative, 51. You will be first on scene. Time out : 11:17.##

"10-4, Engine 51. KMG 365."

And they loaded up and moved out full lights and sirens.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Amtrak double engines. Photo: Cadillac ambulance on the road.  
Photo: Fire gloves on a bumper.  
Photo: A victim getting ambu bag cpr.  
Photo: Roy and Johnny near a Mayfair Photo: Chet with Dr. Brackett.

*  
From: Sam Iam lafddispatchery... Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:59 am Subject: Seat of the Pants

Craig Brice sat in the nurses' lounge with Dr. Morton,  
puzzling over an observation that seemed like only he was noticing. Brice sipped his plain hot black coffee.  
He watched as staff members by the droves came and went from the room calmly despite the disparity leaping out at them.

Finally, Brice just had to ask. "Dr. Morton..."

"Hmm.." said the young interned resident without looking up from the top patient chart he was reading from a stack of a dozen.

"May I ask a personal question of you?"

Mike's eyes shot up in surprise.

Craig immediately amended. "Stop me if I over step any boundaries."

Mike grunted, giving the on duty paramedic his whole attention.

"Why are you wearing a surgical mask?" asked Craig.

"Oh, this.." Morton said, feeling the blue paper covering subconsciously. "I've grown so accustomed to wearing one these last few days that I had forgotten it was still on."  
he sighed, reaching for a beverage mug that naturally,  
wasn't there. "I was exposed to an unknown strain of meningitis from a patient with no I.D. The train crash emergency slowed up my being able to get a hold of her lab results before she was shipped out to another hospital. This is locally imposed isolation by Brackett's order until I get the information."

Craig frowned. "You mean you can still work, even though you've been exposed to her illness?"

"Sure, viral meningitis is very hard to catch, unless you're a care giver examining someone like I was for her. I'm just waiting to hear back whether or not Jane Doe's bug is Neisseria meningitidis or Haemophilus influenza Type B. The first is highly contagious through the air, the second, isn't, and other strains are usually unremarkable."

Brice nodded his head, taking a bite of the pecan pie chunk he held poised on a fork prong. "Neisseria can kill in less than a day, I've read."

Morton shrugged. "Dr. Brackett's given me some covering antibiotic. A cephalosporin called cefonicid. If it's viral,  
I'm not worried. I'm not geriatric or pediatric aged."

Craig carefully considered. "Cefonicid. Dosage, 500 milligrams to 2 grams every twenty-four hours IM or IV."

"That's right." Morton replied, unsurprised at Brice's encyclopedic memory. "And, I've been instructed to stay away from Johnny Gage."

"Oh?"

"He's had his spleen removed. If I'm a carrier, he'll be susceptible almost one hundred percent to any meningitis germ if he gets into close contact with it."

"I didn't know that." Brice said. "Thank you for informing me of that fact."

"Any time."

Then it was Morton's turn to ask Craig about Bob Bellingham and his baby daughter's conditions.

"They're both stable. Bellingham suffered only a moderate concussion.  
His little girl was just hypothermic and hypoglycemic. Dr. Early said she turned around vitals wise almost immediately after rewarming measures."  
"That's a relief.. Usually train wreck neonates fair poorly, even when they're not injured physically." Morton replied.

Right then the white phone rang on the wall over the coffee machine.

Craig got up and answered it, being closest. "Nurse's Lounge,  
L.A. County Firefighter Paramedic Craig Brice." He angled his head glancing up at Morton. "Doctor Morton, it's for you."

Morton took the receiver handed to him as the other man returned to his seat and snack. He listened for a moment, and soon hung up.

Then Mike peeled off his isolation mask and balled it up into his lab coat pocket.

Brice smiled. "So, it wasn't Neisseria or Viral meningitis."

"Nope, hers was Streptococcus pneumoniae, the bacterial form that's the least deadliest. The Bethseda lab boys have just told me that my prescribed antibacterial med bailed me out of the spreading risk category yesterday afternoon."

Sure enough, two new nurses filing into the lounge noticed Morton's liberation and they both said, "Congratulations, doctor. How's Jane Doe?"

"Alive, she lost some hearing but she's gonna make it. The PD took her finger prints this morning. They said they'll have an answer about who she is by nightfall."

"That's wonderful." said Carol.

Brice looked up at the assistant head nurse. "Ms. Evans. Is Miss McCall around?"

"Yes, she's back at her desk. You still need your supplies from pharmacy.." she guessed, squinting at him in a calculating look.

"I do." Craig nodded.

"Not anymore, Mr. Brice. I anticipated a bit and they're all set for you. I went around the supply nurse downstairs. Geez, she's got all the winning personality of a snail. I don't know how you boys deal with her at all. "

Morton chortled over his coffee cup. "It's only ingrained training and a re-enforced sense of etiquette that holds us at bay, Carol.  
Trust me."

"Well, I certainly don't trust her. Craig, your squad supplies are all in an ambu box on Dixie's desk, including that IC epinephrine you used on your last run. Now you better eat that last bite and then scoot before.."

**Beep. Beep. Beep.. Squad Eight. Stand by for response*  
came L.A.'s rich radio voice over Craig's handy talkie.

"Thank you, Nurse Evans." Craig said. "And you, too, Dr. Morton.  
Doctor, we should get together soon so you can tell me more about the clinical aspects of spinal meningitis. I'd like to be prepared further for any future field encounters with it." He rose and ran from the room to grab his squad's supplies.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Craig tossed the box to Belliveau, his temporary partner in the squad's driver's seat, as their call came through.

Brice got into the truck, buckled up, and strapped on his helmet.

**Squad Eight. Unknown vehicular accident. At the intersection of Court Crossing and Hwy 38. At the intersection of Court Crossing and Hwy 38. Time out 11:19. Engine 51 is responding to your incident. Their reported ETA is three minutes. **

"L.A., Squad Eight, 10-4. KMG-356."

Brice and Belliveau spun tires out of Rampart's ambulance bay driveway and onto the freeway.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Morton and Brice talking in the Nurse's Lounge.

Photo: A grumpy supply nurse.

Photo: Brice putting on his helmet in a rescue squad.

*  
From : Cassidy Meyers Sent : Wednesday, September 29, 2004 10:44 PM Subject : Intersect

Mike Stoker hit his airhorn to startle the mass of bystanders away from their response scene as he brought Engine 51 down to a hissing crawl about thirty feet away from the rising steam they could see from the accident site. The crowd parted with shouts and waves of urgency. Others, fearing incrimination,  
ran.

Captain Stanley jolted when he recognized the shade of red glinting under the bright sunlight. He shouted immediately out his window even as Chet Kelly and Marco Lopez beat him out of the Ward. "Get an inch and a half on that smoking engine right now! No wait, it's not that bad. Let's check it out first."

Squad 51 sat in the middle of the intersection, its windshield smashed and spidered with its cherry red hood V folded up from a front end collision. A motorcycle lay a short distance away from the rescue truck, with a casualty, whom Mike Stoker immediately crouched down beside to check for lifesigns.

Cap got on his walkie talkie. "L.A. we have a fire department vehicle involved in a motorcycle versus rescue squad. As yet, there are no signs of fuel leaking. Respond two ambulances to our location."

##10-4, 51. Ambulance ETA is nine minutes. Time out 11:23.##

Squad Eight came back with an immediate follow up. ## Engine 51, we are four minutes away. Just crossing Williams. Heading onto the Hwy 38 on-ramp.##

"Engine 51, 10-4." Captain Stanley replied. His voice had cracked,  
but it went unheeded by anyone.

Hank pelted over to the squad's driver's window, pulling on his work gloves, shouting as he leaned in. "Johnny?! Roy?"

No one was inside the truck.

Captain Stanley whirled around, yelling at the crowd of neighborhood people on the curb. "Did anybody see the two paramedics who were driving this squad?!"

No one stepped up to reply.

Marco yelled again to the others, "They're firemen, dressed like us!.. Where did they go?" Seeing the nationality majority of the onlookers surrounding the fire engine and the accident site, he switched to spanish,  
barely containing his fear and anger.

"Chet, see if you can find where either of them went. There's blood all over the cab." he said as the Irish fireman ran up to him with O2 for the victim on the ground. "Stoker.. Is that man alive?" Cap demanded.  
Mike sadly shook his head from where he was crouched over the man's face. "The biker's dead. Broken neck.  
I'll go call the cops in. Looks like he was looting, Cap. Must've been hit trying to leave on a fast getaway from the train."

Kelly hit an idea. "Cap. Maybe they still have their radios if they got their jackets on. "

"Worth a shot..." Cap said, waving him to it.

Chet lifted his HT and started a hail.. "Engine 51 to HT 51, do you copy?"

Marco gathered near his coworkers, shaking his head about his lack of success with learning anything new from the bystanders.

Kelly hailed yet again. Only fresh static met his ears.

Then Captain Stanley noticed something. A cluster of heads bending over together in a group on the opposite curb under the shadow of the intersection's tall trees.

He started running. He found a bloodied Gage bending over a collapsed older woman, trying to talk to her, over his own severe grogginess.

Hank announced his find to the world over the HT frequency and he heard footsteps running and saw that Marco was coming fast to his aid.

Cap crouched beside Johnny and grabbed his shoulders.  
"Johnny? Hey.. It's Captain Stanley..." Gage didn't seem to understand him and fresh blood ran down the side of his face from his hair. Cap took off Johnny's helmet and took his face into his hands. "Hey.. pal. Can you hear me?"

Johnny mumbled, not able to focus his eyes. "I...gotta... check her out.. She...that was her kid on the bi... I think she's.. shhhe's got......some crushing chest p--"

Hank shouted. "Stoker! Grab the resuscitation gear from the squad. We've a female victim here.  
Possible coronary.."

"..Ugh....gotta get..." Gage groaned, shaking uncontrollably.

"Easy. Don't move your head around. Just stay sitting like you are. I got a hold of ya. Gage, listen to me. Where's Roy? Don't worry about the woman. Stoker and Marco are here and they're taking over her care. Eight's on the way. They'll be here in two minutes. You just relax."

Shuddering, Johnny tried to pull Hank's arms down away from him, and he was looking at the woman in muzzy confusion. "Her pulse's off.. Irreg...u... Let me over there!" he said weakly angry. He was trembling.

Cap sat down on the grass next to Gage, never looking away from his eyes nor did he let go of the support he was giving his wounded paramedic's head and neck.

Hank pulled his captain's HT close to his lips. "Kelly, any sign of DeSoto yet? Johnny's conscious but out of it."

##Still looking. Found a blood trail behind a house over here. I'll let you know. The cops are here. I've told them what's up and they're helping me look around now!##

Marco scrambled over to Hank and gave him a flowing oxygen mask from their supply for Johnny. "Cap,  
I'm needed over there. The lady speaks only Spanish and Stoker's busy hooking up the EKG monitor on her.  
I've got to get the defibrillator set up in case she goes bad."  
"This'll do for now. I'll just have to wait on a collar for him. He's cooperating with me." Hank said holding the clear plastic mask up to Gage's nose and mouth where he sat rigid against Cap's supporting hand with his eyes closed. "Go.." he ordered.

Cap lifted his eyes to the annoying crowd that was blocking his view of their distant surroundings. ::Chet. Hurry. I don't like this one bit.:: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Engine arriving, men pointing up.

Photo: Squad 51 with a crushed front end.

Photo: A motorcycle flattened in the grass with an ambulance in the distance.

Photo: A crashed motorcycle fatality on his back.

Photo: Cap helping a wounded Johnny away from a scene.

Photo: Chet Kelly yelling in urgency in hillside brush.

*************************************************************************** From : patti keiper Sent : Thursday, September 30, 2004 3:28 AM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] When in Rome...

::It feels like a riot brewing.:: Hank thought, eyeing the restless crowds around them.

Vince Howard came running. He had his pistol out and it was aimed up into the air in visual warning. He was the only policeman moving in the open areas.

Vaguely, Cap saw him run to the fire engine, and open one of her side compartments for an asbestos tarp. The fire captain saw him use this to cover both the dead hispanic teenager and the pounds of jewelry which lay strewn around his body.

Hank saw another police officer take a position behind a squad car to cover Vince as he made his way across the street at a dead run, to Captain Stanley side. He had a weapon out, too. One with a spotting scope.

Mike Stoker looked up from the woman he was taking a respiration on. "What's happening?" he asked the street officer when he got there, his eyes getting bigger.

Vince Howard flanked them, his gun once again drawn and displaying at the subtle angry crowd around them.  
"Put your back to mine, and keep a close watch on the people around us. I've backup coming. They'll be here in moments. For now, Schaffer's got us covered with an assault rifle."

Hank shifted position until he had done what the policeman had asked. "Vince? What's going on?"

"How bad are they? Give me that, then let me relay the information to my sergeant. Then I'll tell you. For now, don't make any sudden moves. " the freckled African American street cop ordered. "For the moment, none of us are going to be allowed to leave."

"Johnny's got a possible head injury. This woman's the biker's mother and there's a good chance she's having a serious heart attack. Where's Roy DeSoto? He's gone missing, Vince."  
Hank asked. He bit his lip while the police officer contacted his boss.

Howard met Cap's eyes reluctantly. "This crowd thinks Johnny and Roy hit the San Pedro gang's leader on purpose. We're in the heart of their territory. We think the rest of the gang dragged Johnny and Roy out of the squad when they saw it happen to get even. This woman tried to stop the gang from lynching them,  
but then she went down. Another bystander, a recovery worker, called us out here when they saw the gang attacking your paramedics."

Hank glared up at the crowd around them angrily, but Vince regained Cap's attention urgently. " Don't provoke them. Here's how it is.  
A neighborhood elder, like this lady, holds a lot of sway over the gang. They listen to her. That's probably the only reason why you fire boys are still here in one piece. They want you to help her."

Cap eyed up the pipe wielding young Hispanic men with a new light. One of them set his length of chain down when Cap met his eyes.

"Is Roy all right? Have you seen him?" Hank asked Howard urgently. "He may not be the only fire fighter in jeopardy. I just sent one of my men over there to try and find DeSoto a few minutes ago."

"One of my deputy's has your man Kelly taking cover behind a squad car. We're holding Squad 8 back as a bargaining chip in order to be given Roy DeSoto in exchange.." Vince said.

"What?!" Hank bellowed. "You know where he is?!"

Johnny moaned in surprise at the shout and started struggling anew in his half conscious state against Cap's shoulder. Hank immediately shushed Gage quiet again and told him to remain still. A part of the injured paramedic understood Stanley,  
and soon, he obeyed the snap of authority in his ear.  
"Yeah, never m- move any...trauma.." he whispered.

Hank looked once again to Vince. "What can we do to help you and the other officers bail us out of here?"

"Just keep your cool. We'll definitely get out of this whole nightmare situation without any more injuries, I promise gang's used to our style of ..official negotiating." he said with a smileless good humor. "It'll just take a little time to play the game to their liking to fit their current mood." Howard said evenly.

"We may not have the time to spare, Vince. She needs cardiac medications and a paramedic. Right now, " Marco protested. "This EKG's not normal." he said, tipping the Tetronix up so the police officer could see its restless uneven track.

"Do the best you can until my superiors finish negotiating.  
Keep her breathing or we'll find ourselves in the middle of a shoot out with Roy DeSoto being the hostage in danger."

"Is he injured badly?" Cap said.

"I don't know. We spotted him on someone's front porch six houses away from here being watched by some gang members. I'm afraid he's on his back and he hasn't moved yet.  
Our line of sight's horrible so we can't tell if he's still breathing or not."

Cap grabbed Vince's arm. "Is Roy still in his turnout?"

"What?"

"Vince, is he wearing a tan jacket like this one?" he said,  
tapping himself on the chest.

"Yeah, I think a detective gave that in a description for him."

"Then he's got a radio like mine. And most likely, it's still on. Can I try to talk to him?"

"Hang on.." Vince said and he contacted his senior onlooker.  
"Go ahead. Roy's arms aren't tied from what we can see."

"Stoker. Open a line to Rampart. Get a doctor up to speed.  
I'm going to kill two birds with one stone. I wanna get Roy's health status and if he's able, I want to use him to determine how bad SHE is." Hank said, pointing to the sweaty, grimacing dark haired lady lying on the ground. "Marco, you interpret anything said for the woman's benefit. Got that?"

The fire engineer and hoseman nodded.

"This is the last time I'm ever gonna be caught in the middle of an unsafe scene. Smashed vehicles are fine; easy to figure out for safety's sake. Man, I didn't expect any nearby PEOPLE to become my potential powder keg." Stanley grumbled.

Vince rubbed his sweaty forehead and he glanced at 51's captain in sympathy. "It happens. How often do you fire boys find yourselves in the city?"

"Not often enough, I guess. We never saw this coming."  
Stoker admitted, setting up the squad's biophone.

On the ground, the woman groaned suddenly in fierce pain, and her skin turned a darker shade of gray around her mouth.

Marco gripped her hand and he tightened the O2 mask around her face. "Esto v a aydarle a respirar. Le falta aire?"

" S !" she moaned. "AhhhHH."

Marco smiled at her in convincing confidence.  
"Respire profundo para dentro y afuera." Then he looked up and his smile fell away the moment his face was turned toward Cap.

"What's the problem?" Stanley asked Lopez.

"She's getting short of breath. I told her the oxygen will help her even more if she breathed in and out a little deeper." Marco replied. "We have to do something for her. Now."

Vince offered advice. "Make it sound like it's fire fighting business or they might not let DeSoto answer you."  
Howard snapped his fingers. "Better yet. Mention your new victim. It just may allow Roy some conversational freedom if they realize we have an Elder's treatment ongoing."

Cap got on the HT. "Ok, here goes.... Engine 51 to Squad 51. I require an immediate response on HT. We've a woman down at our original location. An Hispanic female, aged approximately fifty. Possible heart attack." and he bit his lip as he lifted his thumb away from the talk button.

They all poised waiting for a reply over the open line.  
The silence was only broken by occasional taunts from the onlookers and moans from the elder lady.

Then... *Spap* ## Engine 51,...I read you, ...*cough* Loud and clear. I'm....10-2. Situation ..ok..## Roy's voice was thick sounding as if from a swollen lip but no one minded at all.

The firemens' expressions were ones of great relief and they had to fight themselves from moving joyfully. Hank motioned for them to tone it down. Vince upped their ante by putting his own gun away and clearing his hands to the watchers near Roy's porch.

Cap started relaying information to DeSoto over the radio. "Two victims. Victim One, Code I, non urgent." he emphasized, letting a hint about Johnny worm into the transmission craftily. "Victim Two. Conscious, collapsed with chest pain. Cyanosis about the mouth and fingernails. Difficulty breathing. On 15 liters of O2. Vitals are : " and he slowly took a notepad from Stoker in plain crowd sight to read the finding. "Pulse 130, weak and irregular, respirations are 22 and shallow, B/P is 158/106."

Captain Stanley could almost see Roy absorb the patient information like a sponge. Heavy breathing on the line showed that Roy had some pain he was currently dealing with, but his voice's tone was lucid, unlike Johnny's disjointed comments.

##Victim Two. Find out .....what kind of pain she's feeling. This isn't necessarily a cardiac case. Could be a pulmonary embolus, too.  
Ask her when the pain started and whether or not it travels away from where it is now. Find out its severity. Then ask about any taken medications, get a medical history if you can, and ..and ..and, ask about any allergies. My status, I was 10-7 for about 10 minutes.##

"10-7?" Vince asked.

Cap made a gesture, "That means out of service. I'm taking it to mean the period of time of how long Roy thinks he was passed out after he was beaten up.." he began once more into the radio. "Vitals on Victim Two.."

## No otro hombre! Ella solo!## came a furious reply over Roy's radio. (No other man! Her only!)

Marco hissed. "Cap. Stop! Talk only about the woman.  
Someone over there's figured out what we're doing with all the ten codes."

Hank preceded more cautiously. "Comprendo. I understand."  
he radio-ed back. "Squad 51. Please stand by."

Roy cleverly kept the talk button down so the others could hear the police negotiating in the background at his location.

Marco immediately turned to the woman. " Le duele m s cu ndo respira profundo?" (Is your pain worse with a deep breath intake?)

"No, es mismo." she gasped. (No, it's the same.)

" Ha tenido alguna vez un ataque al coraz n?" Lopez asked gently. (Have you had a heart attack before?)

"S , en la primavera." she admitted. (Yes, in the springtime.)

" Cu ndo empez el dol r?" he asked about her pain. (When did this pain begin?)

"A las once en la mana a."  
(At eleven this morning)

" Qu tipo de dolor tiene?" he questioned.  
(What does this pain feel like?)

" Mi pecho es apretand ! Y presi n!" (My chest's squeezing. And pressure.)

" Se mueve para alg n lado?"  
(Does it go anywhere else?)

"Alreded r m izquierda brazo."  
(Around my left arm)

" Ha tenido nauseas?"  
(Do you have any nausea?)

" S . Tiene mucho!"  
(Yes. A lot)

" Toma medicinas y tiene alergias a alguna medicina?"  
(Do you take any medications and are you allergic to any?)

"No. AhhhHH!" The woman suddenly arched off the ground.

" Qu le pasa?" Marco asked her. (What's the matter?)

"Siento que me est y ahogando.." (I feel like I'm suffocating..)

"Ok,..no tenga miedo. Nosotros hablamos a el doctor ahorita."  
(ok, don't be afraid. We are talking to a doctor right now.)

Lopez quickly handed Cap the note pad he had transcribed.  
"She's dyspneic now. I think you should tell them both that fact first."

Cap told Roy everything and then he handed Stoker Marco's interviewed information to read off to Dr. Morton, who was waiting on the phone line.

A minute later, both paramedic and physician said the same thing over two sets of speakers. ##Try nitroglycerin for now until the other squad is allowed in. ##

Stoker had been walked through on how to connect the woman's EKG leads into the biophone.

Morton took responsibility so Marco and Stoker could give the woman the angina medication orally. ##That's only if her pressure's above 100 systolic..## Morton punctuated over the speaker.

## Repeat once every five minutes up to three tablets as long as that B/P reading stays there, fellas. ## added Roy.

Lopez dug around the drug box until he found the tiny brown pill bottle marked NTG. Then he tapped one out onto his hand and crouched over the woman. "Senora. Habre los ojos.  
Esta medicina v debajo de la lengua. Venga en, abra la boca. Esta siente mej r despu s de tomar la medicina." (Maam, open your eyes. This medicine goes under your tongue. Come on, open your mouth. You'll feel better after you've taken this medication.)

The woman gagged for a moment on the nitroglycerin tablet but then her face smoothed after half a minute and her cheeks flushed a more healthy looking ruddy color. They all saw the rhythm on the heart monitor even out just a touch. Marco felt her hand, gripping his own, ease off completely before she finally let go.

" Se siente mejor?" Marco asked once she had relaxed.  
(Do you feel better?)

The sweaty woman nodded. "Grac as bombero."  
(Thank you fireman.) Then she reached up and grabbed Cap's radio. "Primos. No pegaron el gringo paramedico no mas. Vamos al hospital Rampart, el y yo. Necesitamos ir ahora. Ellos me han ayudado. Usted debe sentirse la verg enza para sentir la necesidad para la venganza. Carlos ha pagado el precio para su falta de honradez cuando l rob del tren. Su muerte era el hace de Dios.  
Permita que m apene con la honradez. " (Cousins, don't hit the white paramedic anymore. We're going to Rampart Hospital, he and I. We need to go right now. They have helped me. You should feel shame for feeling the need for revenge. Carlos has paid the price for his dishonesty when he stole from the train. His death was the will of God. Let me grieve with honesty.)

All around the street, weapons were dropped to the pavement as the elder's weeping plea was echoed around the police's and Squad 51's HT frequencies. Seconds later, Squad Eight roared up with an ambulance following close behind.

Hank snapped an order. "As soon as she's stabilized,  
bring all three in together." he ordered the paramedics from Station Eight. "This is Vince's suggestion so we're cleared away from here as fast as possible."

"Understood, captain." Craig Brice replied.

The elder's IV was quickly started by Brice and Belliveau and heart meds soon leveled the arrythmias shooting across the EKG screen.

Johnny Gage was lowered onto a backboard once a cervical collar had been applied and then he was tucked into a handy stokes for a side bench transport. Captain Stanley personally carried Johnny's I.V. bag during his packaging and loading until it was time to hang it on the rig's wall hook.

Hank leaned into Vince. "You know we didn't really need Roy to treat the woman. We could've gotten permission from Dr. Morton directly. We had the biophone right there."

"I knew, Hank. I knew. " said Howard. "The ruse worked. Didn't it?"

"This time. What about for the next time?" Cap wondered morbidly.

Vince sighed. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Roy DeSoto denied any head symptoms.  
He was allowed to ride to the hospital sitting up, once his many cuts and bruises had been poked and prodded and covered up and after he had his vital signs checked out.

Marco, was busy until the very last minute. "Lo siento, pero no podemos llevar mas personas atras. Ella v estar bien." (I'm sorry, but we can't have any more people in the back. She's going to be fine.) he told the elder's claimed next of kin.

The double doors on the Mayfair closed, leaving Brice alone with a sick woman, a dazed paramedic and a second, very very very,..quiet one.

Roy was mute the whole way in as he let Brice do all the work of keeping his goose egged partner awake and within the realm of verbally responsive consciousness.

Finally, DeSoto said something just before the interns and orderlies opened the ambulance doors up for wheeling them all into the treatment room hallway. "I really...hate ...the city now. I'm gonna move Joanne and the kids a little farther out towards the high country just as soon as I can. I think I'll start making plans next week."

"Thinking about leaving the department, DeSoto?" Brice asked him.

"No, just the ambience of the sadder part of Los Angeles.  
Thank you very much." he said sarcastically.

Brice took that to mean that Roy DeSoto wasn't too physically hurt to feel a real true anger over the attack he and Johnny had just suffered at the hands of unthinking people.

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"So, this is a reversal.." said Gage from his hospital bed at the street clothes garbed DeSoto and Brice and surprisingly,  
Chet Kelly. "Didya bring me any candy like I brought for you last week, Craig?"

"Nothing you can choke on." Roy quipped. "Have a taco.  
Marco cooked up those special, just for you." he said,  
handing his head bandage wrapped partner, a tupperware full of steaming, south of the border, delectables.

Johnny made a face. "I'm just about latin american-ed out for a while. Between accidently killing one, to getting beaten up by a whole gang of em, to being saved by one, I've had just about all I can stomach on that theme for the rest of the year."

"Don't tell Marco Lopez that. He might get offended." replied Craig Brice seriously.

"Brice, I'm just not hungry yet. They just ended my D5W I.V. a couple of hours ago, you know."

"Good." said Chet quickly. "Then you don't mind if I dig in a little, pal? Thanks. I'm still starving." he said, grabbing the yellow container out of Johnny's hands and opening it. "You fellas want some? Here, let me grab some paper towels from the bathroom." he said chewing noisily. He held up the food so Roy and Brice could partake in a second round of feasting, too, before disappearing into the depths of the rest room for a roll of towelling.  
"Man, Gage. You've been missing out on some radical fire duty. We may be done with the Amtrak wreck and it's....uh, associated resident gang members, but we sure as heck have been starting a record week of station burn calls. We've been roaring, non stop, for just about every kind of fire imaginable. Dumpster fires, brush fires, mine fires, stove fires, even a pool fire when some dork mistook a can of charcoal starter for a jug of dechlor solution. Geesh, what an idiot he was..." Chet rambled on.

Gage swore he could feel another near coma coming on,  
just listening to his enthusiastic coworker. ::But I'd rather feel some nauseated, twisted insides over some as yet too early food, than experience anything like that twisted train or gang, ever again.:: he concluded. ::At least, not until I've been well fed, well slept. And not until I'm completely without a single aching muscle or pulsating bone left anywhere in my entire body. Only then will I think about re-tackling the big stuff. But, ..not today. I deserve a break more than they could ever possibly know.::

Gage reached for one of Lopez's mild green salsa tacos with a good heart and he bit off one end, very carefully.

FIN

Episode Fourteen, Twisted, Season Two

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Photo: Vince by a house looking alerted.

Photo: A dazed propped up, Johnny Gage.

Photo: Cap on the biophone line behind a car.

Photo: Marco and Stoker, pleased, by the engine.

Photo: Roy under duress in smoke, crawling.

Photo: Marco with a cooking pan, smiling.

Photo: An old lady being gurney loaded by a caregiver.

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